German Car Zone

Hey, congrats on the car! Sorry I'm a little late here.

Well, I say, good choice. A Quattroporte wouldn't really be for me, even if I had the money - I prefer something a little more.. German, if you wish - but I still give it respect!

I suppose I would have chosen a slightly darker exterior colour - to show off those curves more. Colours too close to black and too close to white seem to hide contours more than intermediate colours, especially metallic and pearlescent paints. Perhaps something with slightly more ivory might be nice, or indeed, the colour of that Aston.

As for the interior, it's impressive! I like it a lot. The rich brown upholstery is just the shade I like, and without that too-shiny look that makes me dislike leather (though it could just be the lighting). The piano black goes perfectly with the black dash top - provides an interesting point of contrast in texture without being crass (carbon fibre), brash (aluminium) or boringly traditional (woodgrain).

Woodgrain suits some cars, but not the Q'porte Sport GT. Why get the sporty variant if you're going to do it up like any other luxury car? Not to mention you've got the Phaeton for that. Similarly, I like the wheels and the red brake calipers. They add that sporting touch that really makes the most of the sportiness of the car.

Anyhow, keep us updated on how it goes!

Congratulations on the car - a very fine choice. I just hope that yours is reliable as we've had a lot of problems - almost all being electrical faults of some shape or description. See my thread in The Pit for some pics I took last week. The model was an Exclusive GT.

A nice picture to add to the discussion:

hey, are these chrome wheels? I thought Masseratti used simple aluminum wheels..

They are for the Executive GT.

I notice how the rear of the car sags down visually, much like the rear of the Rolls Royce Phantom... I like that effect.

I would also like to point out something that I found really interesting: those door handles don't open the door at all. There are two buttons hidden inside the handle - one is to open the door mechanically, much like you would open a conventional door to a room, and the other button is to open the door electrically, like in say... It's hard to give an example...



Thanks Raj. I agree with you, buying an Italian car does give some jittery feelings... We're praying it won't have any problems (or many). But from what I know, Quattroportes of late have improved much since the factory has streamlined and ironed out its problems. For example, comments of customers of the early production Quattroportes have been taken into consideration by the factory, and I'm sure some actions have been taken. Like a software upgrade issued just recently made the gear shifts smoother on the standard QP.

Great to see you here too SV. The reason why we didn't get another German car (say, AMG or S/RS) is because we have one already. The 'feel' of the cars, notwithstanding minor differences, are by and large characteristically different to Italian cars.

I'm glad we chucked the carbon fibre trim... It's chintzy on such a car.

Here are some pictures:









BTW, I think these guys totally spoilt the image of this car!