D
Deleted member 37751
Guest
... on the farewell of the Quattroporte, I thought I'd pen a few thoughts to give an actual owners view and not "a bloke down the pub".
The looks.
It is achingly beautiful and even more so in the flesh, the rear and front quarters are very muscular though, these touches helping to create the best looking four door saloon in the world. I met a friend for dinner the other week, him in his brand new M5, me in the Fiat and we'd parked next to each other. As we sat in the window gazing out, the amount of people (mostly young lads) who were stopping to take pictures of the Maser and completely ignore his BMW was about 20/1 in my favour, my friend was gutted!
The interior.
Very good quality, it was better than I'd been led to believe. The space in the rear was cavernous, I had my 6'4" friend sat behind me on a journey to London and he got out fresh as a daisy (as did I)
General ownership and costs.
Well it never let me down, as me and Doodle seem to share the same trait of owning cars and bikes that are meant to be unreliable, as soon as they're in our ownership they become bastions of reliability and don't fail once.
I was quite lucky in the sense that the car had just had £4500 spent on it which took out some of the potential risk, but it did certainly give me the heads up that if this car went wrong it wasn't going to be an enjoyable ownership. As it happened, it didn't cost me a bean, only issue it had was an airbag light would come on randomly, I had it checked out and plugged in and it didn't even show as a stored fault (?!) show just lived with it for the once a fortnight it came on.
How it drove.
I'll be honest around town it felt big and felt heavy, the steering especially felt quite lardy, just didn't like little roads whatsoever. Get it on a B-road though and it came alive, suddenly felt a lot more taught and actually seemed to shrink in size how agile it felt on the twisties.
Fuel economy.
An average of 17 mpg, on a run it was 24mpg and driven locally was 14mpg.
The sound.
No words to describe it to be honest, turned heads even when driven slow and steady, it is a truly wondrous sound, here's a cold start:[YOUTUBE HD]VaauUTSefDU[/YOUTUBE HD]
The feeling and experience of being a Maserati owner.
At 400bhp and being N/A it's not particularly quick, but it feels as though you don't really need any more, the XF-R I had is a better car all round (except the looks and sound) and a lot faster, but most of the time I'd find myself cruising along in a world of my own in the QP.
One other thing that became apparent was how nobody and I mean nobody would even attempt to race you or even goad you into a race, in all the other powerful cars I've had, there was at least one instance a day where some wannabe would be up my jacksie trying to nudge me along. Maybe it's because a Maserati is perceived to be a "supercar" people don't even try and attempt to take you on from the lights...
My overriding memory though of other peoples reactions can be summed up in one word - smile. Everywhere I went, it received such a positive response, men of all ages, and a fair amount of women too, would want to ask questions about it, most of which were cliches but I found it heartwarming to meet so many people who are into cars.
One instance in particular sticks out in my mind though about the general attitude towards them and it was when my friend came up for a blast in his £90k Porsche Turbo, we had a good blast through Yorkshire and at pretty much every junction we came to, cars would willingly let me out but then nudge in front of him to block his exit! He wasn't amused!
To sum up.
For circa £20k there is nothing else on the market that would get this reaction, yes my XF-R beats this in pretty much every department, but the Quattroporte is about more than just that, it is greater than the sum of its parts and I'd own another one at the drop of a hat (but not the new ones, they're pretty ugly outside and too plain inside)
The looks.
It is achingly beautiful and even more so in the flesh, the rear and front quarters are very muscular though, these touches helping to create the best looking four door saloon in the world. I met a friend for dinner the other week, him in his brand new M5, me in the Fiat and we'd parked next to each other. As we sat in the window gazing out, the amount of people (mostly young lads) who were stopping to take pictures of the Maser and completely ignore his BMW was about 20/1 in my favour, my friend was gutted!
The interior.
Very good quality, it was better than I'd been led to believe. The space in the rear was cavernous, I had my 6'4" friend sat behind me on a journey to London and he got out fresh as a daisy (as did I)
General ownership and costs.
Well it never let me down, as me and Doodle seem to share the same trait of owning cars and bikes that are meant to be unreliable, as soon as they're in our ownership they become bastions of reliability and don't fail once.
I was quite lucky in the sense that the car had just had £4500 spent on it which took out some of the potential risk, but it did certainly give me the heads up that if this car went wrong it wasn't going to be an enjoyable ownership. As it happened, it didn't cost me a bean, only issue it had was an airbag light would come on randomly, I had it checked out and plugged in and it didn't even show as a stored fault (?!) show just lived with it for the once a fortnight it came on.
How it drove.
I'll be honest around town it felt big and felt heavy, the steering especially felt quite lardy, just didn't like little roads whatsoever. Get it on a B-road though and it came alive, suddenly felt a lot more taught and actually seemed to shrink in size how agile it felt on the twisties.
Fuel economy.
An average of 17 mpg, on a run it was 24mpg and driven locally was 14mpg.
The sound.
No words to describe it to be honest, turned heads even when driven slow and steady, it is a truly wondrous sound, here's a cold start:[YOUTUBE HD]VaauUTSefDU[/YOUTUBE HD]
The feeling and experience of being a Maserati owner.
At 400bhp and being N/A it's not particularly quick, but it feels as though you don't really need any more, the XF-R I had is a better car all round (except the looks and sound) and a lot faster, but most of the time I'd find myself cruising along in a world of my own in the QP.
One other thing that became apparent was how nobody and I mean nobody would even attempt to race you or even goad you into a race, in all the other powerful cars I've had, there was at least one instance a day where some wannabe would be up my jacksie trying to nudge me along. Maybe it's because a Maserati is perceived to be a "supercar" people don't even try and attempt to take you on from the lights...
My overriding memory though of other peoples reactions can be summed up in one word - smile. Everywhere I went, it received such a positive response, men of all ages, and a fair amount of women too, would want to ask questions about it, most of which were cliches but I found it heartwarming to meet so many people who are into cars.
One instance in particular sticks out in my mind though about the general attitude towards them and it was when my friend came up for a blast in his £90k Porsche Turbo, we had a good blast through Yorkshire and at pretty much every junction we came to, cars would willingly let me out but then nudge in front of him to block his exit! He wasn't amused!
To sum up.
For circa £20k there is nothing else on the market that would get this reaction, yes my XF-R beats this in pretty much every department, but the Quattroporte is about more than just that, it is greater than the sum of its parts and I'd own another one at the drop of a hat (but not the new ones, they're pretty ugly outside and too plain inside)
