
Best Car Design: Maserati Gran Turismo
A sculpted, long-hooded fastback designed to turn heads.
In Italy, beauty is not optional, it is demanded. This is a nation whose fashion houses treat clothing as high art; a people to whom hand-rolling individual pasta pieces into decorative shapes is an artisanal obsession; a country that employs polizia who’ve been plucked straight from the Milanese catwalks… or that is how it seems.
Cars are, of course, not immune from Italy’s rat-race of beautification, and to stand out in the company of auto aestheticians like Ferrari, Lamborghini and Alfa Romeo is no cinch—and yet this year Maserati managed to do so with the Gran Turismo, a sculpted, long-hooded fastback (hand-built in the motherland, natch) that will keep Modena’s chiropractors minted for the model’s life term, given how many unprepared Tuscan neck muscles will be craning as this peach homes sashays by.
While surface-level joy can be had swooning at the Gran Turismo, the allure runs deeper than just elegant lines and sexy rims. The interior hosts a quiet riot of high-end materials—leather, carbon fibre, Alcantara—which collude to create the refined cabin tableau.
Comeliness aside, it would be churlish, and vaguely vacuous, not to mention what a beguilling motor this Maserati is. Rivals in the GT firmament may flex more raw power, but few will be able clock the big testosterone numbers with such composure—like a manicured Donna di Classe whose immaculately quaffed hair refuses to be ruffled in the wind. Even so, its 0-100 km/h sprint time of 2.7 seconds stands as one of the best in class.
Ultimately, there is good reason why grand tourer cars tend to be the purest expression of automotive beauty: their modus operandi is delivering long, comfortable, cross-country journeys with panache—and no one wants to squander life’s precious hours in an ugly car, not least an Italian.
The Numbers (Trofeo model)
Engine: 3.0-litre Nettuno twin-turbo V6
Power: 410 kW
Torque: 650 Nm
Transmission: 8-speed auto
Acceleration (0-100 km/h): 3.5 seconds
Top speed: 320 km/h
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Courtesy of Patricks
