Maserati GranTurismo Trofeo: the long way home

I've met a lot of cars under showroom lights, but very few that fought the lighting and won. At Maserati Sydney, under the neon trident glowing overhead like a family crest, a red GranTurismo Trofeo held the whole floor to ransom. The camera came out before the hellos did, which around here is the highest form of curtsy. Some cars are displayed. This one was enthroned.

The heart of a champion, the manners of a diplomat

Under that gloriously unhurried bonnet is a twin-turbo V6 with serious lineage, derived from the Nettuno engine that powers Maserati's mid-engined royalty. That matters, because it means the GranTurismo isn't merely handsome, she's quietly ferocious. Trofeo is Maserati's word for "the fast one", and having stood beside her, I believe every syllable.

But here's the genius: she's still a grand tourer in the oldest, most romantic sense of the phrase. Four seats. Real, usable, bring-everyone seats. This is a car built for the drive that takes all day on purpose, where lunch is three postcodes away and dinner is in a different climate. Plenty of fast cars ask you to suffer for the privilege. This one just asks you to cancel your afternoon, and possibly your Tuesday. And she's beautiful the way Maseratis have always been beautiful, which is to say effortlessly, as if elegance were simply the factory setting.

The crowning

Four crowns, and I want to be clear about the maths: nothing was deducted. The fifth isn't missing, it's waiting, because you cannot fully crown a grand tourer inside a grand showroom, however flattering the neon. A car like this gets judged the only way her kind respects: a thousand-kilometre road trip, which I've already begun planning. Dawn departure. Coastline strongly preferred. Back seats occupied by the two luckiest souls in the realm. When she returns from that, I suspect the fifth crown will be sitting on the passenger seat, polished and ready.

Long may she run, and may every road she chooses be the scenic one.