These days grand tourers need to be much more than just long distance pleasure cruisers, they need genuine supercar performance too
WORDS OLLIE MARRIAGE PHOTOGRAPHY JONNY FLEETWOOD
Maserati and Aston Martin. Say what you like about the cars, but the brand names are to die for. They’re almost enough by themselves. Tell people you own a Maserati and they’re thinking Sixties St Tropez and cocktails on a shipping magnate’s yacht. For Aston just one word: Connery.
Well, you hope that’s what they’re thinking. Residual retro cool is why you bought the car after all. And these marques do carry it off better than any other. They might be tourers at heart, but the essence of them is this: they’re cars to arrive in. Final yard cars. Name me anything that sweeps up to a kerb better than a grand tourer. Or departs from one.
Because you’re not trying too hard, are you? Drive a grand tourer and you clearly have other interests. You want to get places with speed and style, but raffishly, not forcefully. You haven’t gone for the car that has your bum brailling the tarmac and an engine histrionically shoving you in the back. Here the engines lead, placed under long, athletic bonnets, they’re there to be effortlessly charismatic.
About that. V12s, you’re hoping. But this is where the GT dream butts up against the stark reality of life in 2024. Most likely question you’ll be asked while driving one of these, “Is it hybrid?” People used to ask about fuel economy, now they query electric credentials. I don’t know which is worse, standing beside the DB12 and telling people there’s no e-assistance at all, or lounging against the Maserati and having to admit that you could have had an electric one, but chose to burn fossil fuels instead.
This is the GranTurismo Trofeo. It uses the twin-turbo Nettuno 3.0-litre V6 as seen in the MC20 supercar, but with the histrionics toned down: 542bhp instead of 621. You want more speed? Should’ve had the 750bhp tri-motor Folgore, shouldn’t you? That way you could have had 0–62mph in 2.7secs bragging rights over the Aston as well. You may not be able to have a V12 in the DB12 (which upsets our sense of order) but 671bhp from a twin-turbo V8 is plenty.
Both deliver on the GT promise of effortless progress. They whisk up to motorway speeds without apparent work, shuffling lightly and easily through gears, turbos whistling gently, revs calm, voices muted. Perhaps just as well, as the Maserati doesn’t sing a particularly pretty song. The old GranTurismo had
