Maserati's trident has been sharpened to a full three-spike alert. In 2002, five years after Ferrari woke the brand from an extended nap, the Maserati Coupe and Spyder landed here with a vivacious 385-hp V-8 and coachwork personally massaged by Giorgetto Giugiaro. Prong two came in the form of this year's Quattroporte sedan. The third tine is a new GranSport upgrade of the Coupe. By resurrecting an evocative name from the past and combining it with several minor tweaks, Maserati signals its intent to sink the fork deeper into the U.S. market.
To herd eleven more ponies into the 4.2-liter V-8's stable, Maserati's R&D head, Roberto Corradi, tightened critical manufacturing tolerances, reshaped intake runners and exhaust-valve seats for better flow, and added a computer-controlled muffler bypass to boost output above 4000 rpm. The Cambiocorsa gearbox is the only transmission offered; its software has been rewritten to shave the gearchange time by 35 percent, and its sixth-gear ratio is four percent taller to exploit the GranSport's newfound power and reduced drag.
Hours of testing scale models in the wind tunnel revealed that a collection of aerodynamic add-ons could reduce drag by six percent.... Read full article