What It Is: The future subject of three-AM eBay Motors fantasies, this is Maserati?s next flagship sedan, seen undergoing final testing in Italy. Look past the Warhol-inspired wrapping paper, and it?s clear Maserati wants the new Quattroporte to be easily identified as a sibling to the recently restyled?and gorgeous?GranTurismo coupe.
Why It Matters: For one, any Italian four-door sedan with a Ferrari-sourced V-8 is indisputably cool automobilia, and the current Quattroporte dates to 2004. But Maserati and Ferrari are businesses, meant to earn money?no matter how much history shows otherwise?and the Quattroporte is important for their bottom lines. It?ll be a volume product in relative terms for Maserati and its sibling Ferrari, generating cash from sales and justifying higher R&D expenditures for all the engineering and components it shares with Ferrari?s road cars. Under Fiat ownership, Alfa Romeo will never be the luxury brand that CEO Sergio Marchionne dreams; thus, Maserati?s expansion with this car and the smaller Ghibli could be the Fiat Group?s only alternative for entering the premium market.
Platform: Maserati and Ferrari aren?t gung-ho on naming and branding their automotive architecture like VW is, but this rear-drive platform is largely new. Liberal use of aluminum will cut at least 400 pounds from the current Quattroporte?s weight, a portly 4400-pound cruiser in our last test.
Powertrain: Ferrari is providing two engines for the Quattroporte: A 520-hp turbocharged V-8 and a 420-hp supercharged V-6. It?s a trope to drive an Italian road car and say it sounds like an F1 racer, but there will be a grain of truth to that old story with the V-6 Quattroporte. The engineers who developed the six also are the guys running the program for the turbocharged 1.6-liter V-6 that?ll power the Ferrari F1 team in 2014. Unlike the F1 car, both Quattroportes will make use of the ubiquitous eight-speed automatic transmission from ZF, which converts torque in a host of Audis, BMWs, Jaguars, and Land Rovers.
Competition: Audi A8 and Audi S8, Jaguar XJ Supersport, Porsche Panamera.
Estimated Arrival Time and Price: The V-8 version will debut at the Detroit auto show in January and will go on sale later in 2013 with a price tag of around $130,000. It?ll be at least a few more months before the arrival of the cheaper V-6 car
