2009 Maserati Quattroporte S - Automobile Magazine
I have a long history with the Quattroporte. When I first drove the Quattroporte, during its introductory media event in Florence, Italy, in March 2004, I was amazed by the styling, the energetic V-8 engine borrowed from Ferrari, the oh-so-Italian interior, and the handling, which led me and... It was clear then that Maserati knew that the transmission would be unacceptable for many American buyers, as the QP's engineering team was interrogating the U. S. press corps for its reactions to the gearbox. Maserati, which along with Ferrari is a separate entity within Fiat, has never stopped working on the Quattroporte over the past five and a half years. This was only a slight improvement, and by then it was common knowledge that the QP was soon to get a proper automatic transmission, a six-speed ZF unit used for years by BMW. From the first moment my codriver and I pulled away from the Hotel de Paris, it was clear that the new gearbox finally transformed the Quattroporte into a big-bucks luxury sedan that could truly compete with the Mercedes-Benz S-class, the BMW... Source: www.automobilemag.com
