Gadgetory

driving the Ghibli is not so much a question of how fast is it but how fast does it feel last time we had a Maserati we had in the Grand Turismo and I was absolutely smitten even then it's cabin technology it's appointments its lines and it's responsiveness we're all super strong plus his idli can match up let's face it you want to sell really big volume in the car bizzy's days you're doing it with four doors look at a BMW 6 grand coupe I'll get a Panamera Cayenne now look at Monza riding for the first time ever they have two four doors and the lineup at once Ghibli is the latest now inside the deeply you find a nice Maserati interior they've always had a real sort of a distinctive design and a real sense of taste it is of a lower scale than their upper range cars that are absolutely sumptuous this one is more like very nice dominated by as you can see two LCD screens a slightly smaller but ample one here between the gauges and the big boy this 8.4 inch centre stack unit now unless you review cars all the time like I do you may not notice this as a buyer but there is that day in the Maserati owners life when they're going to drive to the airport and they're giggling fly down to a business meeting pick up their Dodge Dart rent-a-car and see the same stuff that's a black day in their calendar the sharing though is it's a little awkward especially at a brand of this prestige everything works well touch response on this particular implementation as well is very quick big buttons and fast response I like that 235 second Street San Francisco California voice command is also quite good they give you lots of prompts on the screen so you know what you can say without memorizing things and it lets you dictate addresses in one go not piece by piece I like that as well it's only painful once in a while when the Garmin nav is full screen giving you directions and looks a little cartoony in this car that's jarring there are three audio systems available on this car we have the full deal we got the Bowers & Wilkins 15 speaker 1280 watt monster now I always check a sound system to see what it does to make mediocre sources sound good like highly compressed satellite radio this one doesn't Wow me in that respect feed it a good source like a high bitrate file here on that SD card really comes alive up here behind the mirror you may have noticed cameras looking forward this one is part of an intelligent high beam systems it can go into a high beam mode automatically ducking you can also set it to go manual like a normal car there's a town beam mode which is kind of like a smarter in town low beam for customers who live on the continent and cross the channel a lot this Carl figure what side of the road you're driving and curve the lights appropriately of course as almost every Italian car we review there are little quirks that make it Italian these knobs for volume and for tuning very important they aren't illuminated at night they're gone this shifter is so persnickety and such a slight movement I defy you to put this car in Reverse accurately three times in a row and you're best advised to put your CDs in while you're driving because when you're in park you almost can't get the disc in there in all we've got a fairly high functioning cabin with a few quirks and a really nice sense of style Charlie's in the front there means set the seat where it's comfortable he's six feet tall very normal height and I just can't sit behind him I'm not sure I can close the door which is a shame because the Headroom is phenomenal back here and the trunk is huge but this is a problem now the biggest bragging right to any maserati is under the hood because you can pretty credibly say it's got a Ferrari engine it's a Maserati design but it is built by Ferrari on the modem to line so it's got some real pedigree this one is a 3 litre v6 true twin turbo not a two-stage single turbo so there's one for each bank on this car direct injection highly variable cam timing pretty much all the modern tricks are in here some numbers 410 horsepower 405 foot-pounds of torque zero to sixty happens in 4.7 seconds for a car that weighs over 4100 pounds it gets pretty good mpg of 1525 and all that through an 8-speed automatic on all Ghibli's no matter which trim you get because we have a q4 all-wheel drive we of course have all four wheels driven on demand that means the rear does all the work normally but when the car needs traction because of slip or for performance they can call in the front wheels and get almost a perfect split of traction across the - speaking of perfect splits by the way this car is weight on the ground is a perfect 50/50 it's a pretty good accomplishment yep got a crick in my back standing kind of funny it's cuz I got the Maserati key on the right side oh this is the biggest heaviest key yet maserati said it's okay it fits in a purse and you'll never have to use it that's all keyless well it's pushing a quarter pound that thing compared to an iPhone it's just about the same league that's huge it's interesting driving the Ghibli is quite quick but how fast does it feel and how fast does it sound they spent a lot of time laboring over the exhaust note in this car give it a listen this engine is incredibly smooth out II like to be honest that's the first thing that came to mind shifts are quick especially when you engage two things here M for manual no that's toggle between manual and automatic and s for sport mode also a toggle engage them both of you have your sharpest possible evening of course we've got a turbo v6 instead of a larger v8 we're looking at here is a car that has very limited turbo lag but it does have turbo motor feel it's not got that immediate kick or grunt what it does do though is breathe amazingly well once you get to about 2500 Wow there's just no end of the lungs on this car but that super low bottom and pump that is definitely got a little delay around it now we start our little Odyssey with the Ghibli I said cheaper and that's because that's what it is we're starting about seventy seven thousand dollars base on this car then you start to add the seen that style towards the premium setup is eighteen hundred bucks for power movable pedals remote start rain sensor for the wipers and parking sensors the biggest thing on the list though is Bowers & Wilkins audio at over five thousand dollars I was impressed not sure I was that impressed a power of sunshade is six hundred and seventy a hotspot although I wouldn't get it is 720 the skyhook adaptive suspensions a little over three grand and if you're going to splurge on B&W audio you may as well kick in another 1200 to get laminated sound deadening glass down the sides of the car to match that that's in the windshield base now we're in about eighty nine five all in still comfortably below a hundred CNET style and comfortably differentiated in the Maserati lino Oh