The new Maserati is a pleasure to behold

published 5 September 2008

Price: £85,000 Engine: 4,691cc, V8 Power: 425bhp.

0-62mph: 5.4 seconds. Top speed: 174mph.

The Maserati Quattroporte is one of the coolest cars on sale today, says Piers Ward in Top Gear. In this new model, Maserati has therefore opted for only a minor facelift.

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The "big news" is the engine: you can now trade up to an S model, which gets a 4.7-litre V8, upping the performance by a few miles per hour here, a few seconds there. It's the noise it makes that's the real highlight, though. From a burble at low revs, it builds into a harder-edged note, and is one of the few super-saloons that sounds better inside than out.

The Maserati is probably the world's most beautiful car, says Pete Tullin in What Car. And the queue for the new S model is likely to be "growing faster than one at a Kylie kissing booth". It beats rivals for "sheer driving pleasure", it is amazingly agile for a two-tonne car, and is also extremely responsive and planted in sweeping bends.

Of course, at £85,000, this driving pleasure doesn't come cheap, and it's not as refined, spacious or comfortable as a Mercedes S-Class, but "boy it's a damned sight prettier". You "only live once, so why not"?

The Quattroporte could trade on its looks alone, says Mark Nichol in Auto Express, but it's actually "a brilliant all-rounder". It's "equally at ease devouring corners as it is wafting gently along the motorway", and what it might lose out on to German rivals, it more than makes up for with "flair, dynamic ability, and that quality missing from most of its rivals exclusivity".