The Italians are fortunate with their language, it can transform phrases as mundane as “four doors” into words as charismatic as “Quattroporte”. And in the context of the name of Maserati’s big, posh saloon car offering, it'd a word that has a strange and unshakeable power over me.
For as long as I've been able to pronounce it, I have loved the Quattroporte. Every iteration, from the first, Citroën-related model in the ‘70s, through the Marcello Gandini-penned fourth generation (my favourite, for reasons unknown), to today’s very much more curvaceous car. It's been an ambition to get my hands on one, any, of these, and then on a beautiful sunny Tuesday this week, the keys finally landed on my desk.
