Maserati GranTurismo S Auto gets a Sports Pack
Wed, 03 Aug 2011Maserati GranTurismo S Auto - now with Sport Pack for an extra £4k
The Maserati GranTurismo S Auto is Maserati’s best-selling car in the UK, and you can see why.
It’s good looking in that slightly odd combination of butch and dainty that certain Italian cars manage so well, it’s performance is decent without being earth-shattering and – certainly compared to any other Italian you could consider remotely ’Exotic’ – it’s more sensibly priced, at the right side of £100k.
But if there are criticisms to be levelled against the GrandTurismo S they perhaps revolve around its slightly ‘soft’ nature. Of course, you can remedy that to some degree by having the MC Stradale instead, but that’s another £20k.
So in the best marketing traditions of car makers, Maserati has come up with a solution for those who would like their GranTurismo S Auto to be a bit a bit more obviously ‘sporty’ – the Sports Pack.
The GranTurismo Sports Pack throws in the MC Auto Shift software for the gearbox and tweaks the exhaust so the bypass valves fully open in sport mode to make a better noise.
On the cosmetic front the Sports Pack delivers the GranTurismo some side skirts and front winglets, black mesh grills and red-edged trident, black look headlights, spoiler, oval exhaust pipes and a set of Grigio Mercury Neptune-design alloys.
But even with the sporty cosmetics and the tweaked ‘box and exhaust, the performance of the GranTurismo S Auto stays identical at 5.0 seconds 0-62mph – we guess it just feels like it’s quicker because the ‘box shifts differently and it makes more noise.
So if the GrandTurismo S with an auto ‘box floats your boat, but you’ve been put off by its lack of a bit of body kit and a noisier exhaust, this is your big day. And all for just an addition £3,840 – taking the price up to £92,480.
By Cars UK