Quattroporte V drawings begin to appear. . .

Last year, while I was visiting the Lamborghini factory, I noticed a heavily disguised, taped-up prototype sitting in a room I had mistakenly wandered into. The car I saw was being referred to in the press as the "Canto." This car, as I was later to find out, was in reality a "red herring." "We drive that car around during the day to tease and throw the press off," said a high ranking Lamborghini official.

Now we see two separate leaks to the press of the forthcoming Maserati Quattroporte V. The first car appeared in the magazine Quattroute. The first Maserati club to feature the car were our friends in the UK Maserati Club, who featured the car on the cover of the newsletter, edited by Andy Heywood. (Congratulations on the scoop, fellas.) This car, as you will see, is a very tame version, classic yet easily blends in with all the other upscale Euro sedans. Judge for yourself.

The second illustration broke cover in Tokyo and is much more cutting edge, with a front-end grill treatment that is directly descended from the lovely A6G2000 Frua single cam Cabriolet of 1952, of which only four were built. The very low profile car in the drawing will have great difficulty seeing series production, let alone reaching the coveted concept phase. These drawings are fun to look at and, yes, even dream about, but please resist the thought of seeing one in your driveway as more "red herrings" will be along shortly if for nothing else than to tease us. . .

Special thanks to Andreas Birner for the drawings and for keeping us all apprised.

Ciao,
Frank Mandarano
Maserati Club International

Click on the images to view at full size.

First drawings of the New Maserati Quattro Porte Released

By Andreas Birner ©

At the "Artedinamica" exhibition at the Tokyo Museum of Contemporary Art, the Italian sportscar manufacturer Maserati and Pininfarina presented the first drawings and a clay model of the new Maserati quattro porte. The exposition, dedicated to the legendary sportscar designs of Ferrari and Maserati, opened on April 27, 2002.

Since Maserati's takeover by Ferrari in 1997, many things have changed at the world-famous sportscar factory of Modena. The entire production plant was renewed, rebuilt and enlarged, and the current products are all-new as well: After the launch of the new Maserati Spyder at the Frankfurt International Motor Show in September of 2001 and the presentation of the new Maserati Coupé at this year's Detroit Motor Show in January, Maserati has the youngest model range of all sportscar manufacturers.

Since the mid-1960's, a sporting yet luxurious four-door limousine has been part of the Maserati programme for most of the time. Since 1964, this model had simply been called "Quattro Porte" or later "Quattroporte" (Italian for "Four Door"). Four generations of Quattroporte models were built between 1964 and 2001 -- with several breaks caused by the oil crisis and other events in the partly troublesome history of Maserati. When the production of the Quattroporte V8 Evoluzione came to an end in 2001, the last model dated back from Maserati's pre-Ferrari era left the building.

To complete the current model range, Maserati announced to launch a new four door model in late 2003. At the above mentioned Artedinamica exposition, Maserati presented the first drawings and a clay model of this new car: The quattro porte V. Maserati have decided to keep up the traditional model designation for their new limousine. For the very first time, a Maserati four door production car will be designed by Pininfarina -- a novelty in Maserati's history that was unveiled in a recent interview by Maserati's CEO, Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, in which the latter announced that Pininfarina was chosen to design Maserati's future four door models while Giugiaro's Italdesign would remain the sculptor of the marque's two door coupes and spyders.

As revealed by Pininfarina's drawings, the return to the spelling of "quattro porte" in two words will not be the only reminiscence to the Maserati Quattro Porte I of 1964: The kidney-shaped front grille is a modern re-interpretation of the nose section of the first Quattro Porte and also reminds the insider of the classic Maserati A6 GCS from the 1950's. The shape of Pininfarina's quattro porte V fits very well to Giugiaro's design of both the current Maserati Coupé and Spyder without losing its "Pininfarinarity": Its prominent "hips", its soft lines and its crouching aggressiveness will for sure make the Maserati quattro porte V become another masterpiece of Italian automotive design.

Nothing has yet been revealed in regard to the quattro porte's engine. It is very likely that the very modern 390 hp engine used in the Maserati Spyder and Coupé will provide an adequate performance to the future four door model, too, but who knows. . .

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Just when I was planning on purchasing a new S-class (or CL-class) MBZ, I hear about the re-emergence of the QP, and now am holding off on the MBZ purchase to wait and see. I can only say that I truly hope Pininfarina's design for the final production car will be as close to the aggressive lines on Birner's drawings. Part of the reason I may make a departure from MBZ is because they lost it on the flagship sedan. The new QP will have to have that exotic, distinguished, long, low, wide stance, typical in the best (and most expensive) Italian automotive classics in order to hold my interest. I hope they won't blow it and make it a medium-sized (i.e. BMW 5-series), generic-looking Japanese trashmobile, and hopefully something that is a far departure from the dull and compact look of the last QP. Any comments, news or updates would be greatly appreciated.
-- no name listed