Maserati GranCabrio Sport 2011 Pictures 
gallery (26 photos)
Say you have just over one hundred grand to blow on a new set of wheels – nice thought, huh? Actually, let’s be a little more money and car specific. The cash you have to spend is £102,165 and the car needs to be an open-top grand tourer. So what’s on the shopping list? A Merc SL? What about an Audi R8 Spyder? An Aston could be squeezed out of the budget and, for sure, a BMW 6-Series, with plenty of change leftover. What about the new Maserati GrandCabrio S? It’s not the most obvious choice, but should it also be considered as a credible candidate?
In the Metal
In fear of making this part of my test report just one cliche followed by another, let’s begin by getting some of them out of the way right now:
Bite-the-back-of-your-hand-gorgeous.
Sinuous flowing lines.
Italian styling infused with a bucket load of passion.
When did God start designing cars?
Blah, blah, blah. Cliche, cliche, cliche……
So, by now, I’m guessing you’ve probably figured out the Sport has not exactly come out of the box marked ‘ugly’. Not that there’s anything wrong with the model it was derived from (the GrandCabrio) except where that is beautiful, the Sport is handsome and masculine. And that’s odd, because the body differences between the two are minimal at best, yet the extra adornments Maserati has subtly added have elevated it from the league we like to call “automotive handbag” to “I want one”. And take a gander at those 20” Astro-design wheels, too. If you look really carefully you’ll notice they have the Maserati trident incorporated into the rims – master stroke, or what?
It’s when you start to look beyond the Pininfarina styling and cast a critical eye further than the swathes of super soft leather covering the interior that things get a little, well, erm, disappointing. The buttons and switchgear have come straight out of the Fiat stock bin and it could be argued that Audi performs exactly the same trick with the R8. Except, the VW knobs are tactile and work with a sense of purpose while these ones are horrible blobs of plastic which feel as though they will stop working after three days of usage. I’m not being pernickety here, just realistic. See, the type of buyer the Sport is aimed at will expect the devil to be in every detail. It is an unnecessary disappointment. I got the sense of “Oh, that’ll do. No one will ever notice we’ve used Panda switches”. I did and yes, they will.
Driving it
You turn the key and; Holy Moly! It sounds as if the 4.7-litre V8 is sitting in your lap. I knew it would make a noise, maybe a loud shouty noise or a deep muffled growl but I just wasn’t expecting what was expelled out of its twin bafflers. I kid you not; its voice piece is bigger than its exterior beauty. It was a bit like Cheryl Cole lifting up one bum cheek and letting off the biggest reverberating farts of all time.
Apart from having a louder exhaust note the Sport also boasts an extra 10bhp more than the standard model. And bigger brakes, too, and the chassis is forty per cent stiffer. There’s a sport button on the dashboard (supplied by Fiat, obviously) and when it’s deployed it sharpens-up things like the steering and the suspension. It makes the engine even noisier and communicates via electrical wires to the automatic gearbox so that no cog can be changed unless the driver instructs it to do so. This will be joyous news if you’ve bought the S with the intention of perhaps ragging it around the odd race circuit or two. A word of warning before you do: Don’t even think about it. The clue to the reasons why is in the name – GranCabrio (with or without the Sport appellation) - which translates into: this car was built to go from Monte Carlo to Cannes, quite quickly and with a lot of style. And it has little problem performing that particular task, however, try driving it on the edge of its limit and everything goes a bit array. It’s too heavy for a start and then once it does get going the gearbox doesn’t quite know how to evenly distribute the power so it delivers it in one almighty dollop. The steering is vague, to say the least, and even at motorway speeds I constantly had to make corrections to keep it in a straight line. Then there’s the stiffer chassis; it is still too woolly and the smallest road blemish threw it completely off balance. Oh, the all-important 0-62mph is covered in 5.2 seconds, which isn’t exactly lightening fast but then, on the other hand, it’s not a slouch either.
In a sprint race, then, its market rivals will outrun it and those very same cars will probably out manoeuvre it too. Yet despite the Sport’s blatant inadequacies you can’t help but shower it with the sort of unconditional love a parent gives a child. You make excuses for it (or not even bother mentioning its flaws) in much the same way as you wouldn’t bring attention to the fact Cheryl had trumped-out a really big smelly one.
Worth Noting
The seats in the rear are usable although two full-sized humanoids will find a long journey a cramped affair. Also, with the roof folded down the boot space is limited to a couple of M&S sandwiches and a KitKat chunky.
Summary
I just wish they had thought of another name other than ‘Sport’. It immediately implies this is going to be a really precise tool and it’s not. If they had called it Trilby or Sausage or Magnolia then it would have been really, really easy to forgive it for so many of its failings. I’d have written, ‘Ah yes, the Trilby, I dare you not to fall in love it……….”
Actually, drive the GranCabrio Sport just once, and I still dare you not to fall in love it, warts and all. Damn you Maserati.
Tech specs: (out of five)
Star ratings: 5 (only because it is the most handsome car on the market today)
Performance: 3
Engine & Transmission: 3
Ride & Handling: 3
Fuel Economy: 2
Tactility: 4
Appearance: 5
Interior: 3
Safety: 5
Value and equipment: 3
CAR MAKE & MODEL
Maserati GranCabrio Sport 2011 Pictures
CAR REF NUMBER
36111
VIEWS: 513
TOTAL VIEWS: 3,996
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