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I first drove a Maserati 13 years ago. It was the newly-launched GranCabrio Sport — a slightly more powerful version of the GranCabrio that Maserati had launched a year previously — and the experience forever changed the concept of what a desirable car was to me. Until then, it had been all about the usual suspects — Porsches, Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Bentleys and the like; the Maserati name existed in the background, like a somewhat shy party guest.

I’d heard many wonderful things about the brand, and the closest I’d come to one in the flesh before the GranCabrio was the Indy, a magnificent GT (belonging to a certain fugitive) that I was not allowed to drive; that privilege was reserved for Srini. You can well imagine why I became so excited when Bijoy asked me to go to Italy and drive the GranCabrio Sport; it was the perfect opportunity to tick a rather svelte box off my list.

To cut to the chase, I had the time of my life with that car. Looking back at what I wrote about it, I now feel a tad embarrassed about the kind of language I employed, but my emotions were as real as a heart attack, I assure you. Here are some examples:

‘The GranCabrio is the sort of car that makes you spontaneously combust with sheer, electric desire.’

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‘This car looks like it has flames billowing from its rear when it’s standing perfectly still; it literally sizzles and pops.’

‘The V8’s growl goes directly from the soles of your feet to the pleasure-centres of your brain.’

‘That sinful engine will sing an aria worthy of Pavarotti at his well-fed best.’

‘I would rob banks and diddle the stock market in order to get my hands on it.’

‘I can claim, hand on heart, that it is arguably the most beautiful car in the world.’

In case you haven’t caught the drift already, I loved that car six ways to Sunday, and though it was by no means perfect (I did manage to sneak some objectivity into the article), it ended up being the car I truly desired; that glorious V8 alone was worth the price of admission.

Since that epochal moment, my life has been relatively Maserati-free, except for a couple of encounters with the Levante that were rather tepid; a bloated SUV with the famed trident on it just didn’t do it for me. What I really wanted was another go at a GranCabrio for old times’ sake, something which wasn’t materialising here; I would have to look further afield. In one of those astrological perfect storms, a work trip to California coincided with a call to the good people at Maserati India, and the result was the loan of a GranTurismo Trofeo Primaserie for a day in San Francisco. It didn’t have a drop-top, sure, but I wasn’t about to inspect this particular stallion’s dentistry.

This is the first new-generation Maserati GT since 2008, and it looks… different. I say that in a complimentary manner, because although it doesn’t make my hair stand on end like the older car did, it’s still a smashing-looking, elegant and stylish machine. Its proportions are just right, and not once does it look like the large car that it is; there’s a lovely flow to the design from front to back, and in profile, it still looks fast standing still. The Grigio Lamiera Matte paint on this Primaserie model is absolutely sensational, too — it’s part of a limited run of 75 units, in celebration of the 75th anniversary of the original GranTurismo. It’s a recognisable shape in some new threads, and the tailor did a damn good job this time around as well. The sculpted bonnet has heat extractors (a nod to the powerful engine underneath), and the car’s long wheelbase, low roofline, and muscular haunches give off classic GT vibes; the carbon fibre accents and 20-inch wheels (21 at the rear) ratchet up its sporty demeanour.

At the back, the slim ‘boomerang’ tail-lights (Maserati Alfieri Concept, anyone?) are the standout elements on an otherwise slightly bland derriere. Overall, I could argue that the front end reminds me a little of the Grecale, but just look at it otherwise — that big silver Trident in the menacing grill, flanked by black air intakes, the red-accented alloy wheels, the red ‘Trofeo’ badges on its sides, the quad pipes hinting at malevolence at the rear… if this car fails to stir you, you need to make an appointment with your GP. Driving one of these every day would make you feel like a movie star, guaranteed. Fun fact: under all these fetching lines is the Giorgio Sport platform, which means the GT is essentially a longer Alfa Romeo Giulia/Stelvio.

No sane individual would simply stand around looking at this car if they had the key in their pocket, and since I just happened to have said key, I went straight for the hot seat. Now, Maserati interiors have traditionally been somewhat underwhelming in comparison to the competition; I remember the older GT’s cabin being reasonably plush, but nowhere near as luxe as, say, a Bentley Continental GT. The new GranTurismo’s cabin does, however, take things up a couple of notches — everything looks and feels better built and finished, and the leather seats are especially tasty. There’s a reasonably generous amount of room in the rear seats, too — you won’t have to reserve them only for your hamsters, although whoever wants to sit there will have to get up to some contortions. The steering wheel, sporty pedals, flappy paddles and digital clock all look great, but other than those, this doesn’t look like an interior that a car costing a quarter of a million dollars should have; it’s also far too similar to a Grecale’s cabin.

Maserati has also gone down the touch-and-digital everything route, which is a route I dislike; manufacturers in the luxury game really need to go back to buttons, switches and dials. For example, is there a single reason that the aircon controls should be only on a touchscreen, thereby requiring you to take your eyes off the road when you want to adjust the temperature or blower? The answer is no — in any car. Granted, the digital instruments and two-step touchscreen infotainment system are hi-res, but they reflect light like nobody’s business. Oh, and the plastic buttons for gear selection? They’re hard to locate at first, and feel cheap for this kind of cabin. The honest truth is that a car that’s this evocative on the outside needs to give you the same special feeling when you’re sitting in it, and the GT falls short of this.

Enough of the doom and gloom, though. This car is meant to be driven — a lot — and when you fi re up the engine, the low burble that the 3.0-litre twin-turbo Nettuno V6 (from the MC20 supercar, no less) settles into gives you a hint of its abilities. Do I miss the all-betsare-off fury of the older car’s V8? Damn straight I do; nothing will ever compare to a naturally aspirated V8 in terms of drama. That said, who am I to argue with 542 bhp and 66 kgm? This engine also has some F1-level pre-chamber ignition tech, in that a spark plug has been added to each cylinder’s pre-chamber, thereby increasing compression ratio and making combustion faster; Maserati says the Nettuno is the only production engine with this feature.

I wasn’t expecting to be too excited by the Nettuno’s soundtrack, but it proved me wrong. It has character, loads of it; all the bangs, pops and raspiness that a power plant with sporting pretensions should possess are present, and when you bury the throttle and (very quickly) hit the 6500-rpm peak, the massive shove in the back you feel is absolutely thrilling. All the torque bursts into life at 3000 rpm, which means that you can mid-range the heck out of the GT all day long; at city speeds, the engine is totally civilised, too — it’s a supercar engine inside a grand tourer, but it doesn’t ever feel highstrung. The engine loves being given both barrels, and the acceleration on offer is suitably ferocious, with the 0-100 kph run being dismissed in 3.3 seconds; when you get off the throttle, the overrun crackles are sweet, sweet music. The 8-speed ZF gearbox is totally on the ball, with seamless, super-quick shifts up and down especially when using the paddles (as you should).

With its long wheelbase, and the V6 being situated well behind the front wheels, there’s a superb sense of balance to the GT. In this genre of car, what you need is a mix of sharpness, stability and agility, which it delivers in buckets; its rear-biased all-wheel-drive system sweetens the deal, and on back roads, the Maser slices through corners effortlessly, with a very quick turn-in, razor-sharp steering, a direct front end and copious amounts of mechanical grip. Not that I tried to push it beyond its limits, but it felt like it was only starting to warm up the harder I drove it; the brake pedal could definitely have used more feel, but that’s a relatively minor quibble in an otherwise tremendous package. The GT weighs nearly two tonnes, mind you, so for Maserati to have tightly controlled body roll and given it the placeability of a lighter sports car is no mean feat.

You have to be able to drive long distances in a proper grand tourer without feeling like you met a wrecking ball mid-swing, and the GT’s ride quality helps you achieve this desirable state of being… but with some caveats. Its adaptive air suspension works extremely well, helping you corner absolutely flat and offering some degree of suppleness while cruising down a highway. However, I found that hitting a sweet spot between ride and handling took a fair amount of working through the various drive modes and suspension settings.

I’ve driven cars from the competition where selecting just one all-encompassing mode did the trick, but with the Maser, there was some inconsistency in the way the modes functioned; for example, in the middle of some fairly plush cruising, a sudden thud would course through the cabin from some sort of undulation on the road’s surface. Thankfully the roads in California don’t have the sort of underbody-shredding speed-breakers we do in India, but still, the GT has a low carbon fibre splitter-equipped nose, so you still have to be careful; the huge wheels and low-profile tyres are also simply begging for dings, dents and cuts, so you have to keep that in mind, too.

Who is the GranTurismo for, then? Abroad, the GT segment has some serious players in it — the Aston Martin DB12, the Bentley Continental GT and the Mercedes AMG GT, to name a few — and there’s a player from the Stellantis family nipping at its heels, too; the Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio, which is a third of the price, has pretty much the same chassis and engine, comes with four doors and is far lighter. In India, the GranTurismo Trofeo will cost you Rs. 3.34 crore, on-road; for that money, you can buy a Porsche 911 GT3 Touring, a car that will blow the doors off the Maser in the handling department. An Aston Martin DB12 will out-muscle and out-drama it, but will also create a Rs. 5.3-croresized hole in your bank account. A machine like the Mercedes-Benz AMG GT 63 S 4MATIC Plus is slightly cheaper (at Rs. 3.2 crore), as quick and fast, more powerful and more luxurious — but it doesn’t really qualify as ‘exotic’.

Tough call, then? Not really; if you’re operating in this stratosphere, you likely have some of these cars in your garage anyway, and adding an Italian name to it will only give you more bragging rights. As far as I’m concerned, I’d gladly pony up for the GranTurismo, in a universe in which I could afford to; to use a cliche, it has ‘soul’, and it’s truly unique. An engine with a soundtrack like the older model would have been perfect, but in every other respect, this car renewed my love for the Maserati badge.