Alfieri Would Approve
by Ross Finlay (28 Mar 02)

It has taken Maserati a long time to settle down as a properly funded road car manufacturer - more than 80 of the 88 years since Alfieri Maserati started his original Bologna workshop, in fact. But it now has to be regarded very seriously as far as performance, style and build quality are concerned.

The new Spyder, of which a coupé version will be introduced to the UK market by the summer, comes with Italdesign-Giugiaro bodywork based on, but not exactly the same as, the 3200 GT, which until now has been the only Maserati in the catalogue.

You can tell there's a different attitude at Maserati, now that it's under the wing of Fiat/Ferrari and isn't strapped for cash, from the fact that the Spyder comes with 15 standard metallic colours, including two new ones named Nuvolari and Goodwood. There are even ten different colours for the impressive all-leather interior (pictured) - that's the material not only for the seats but also for the door trim and the great sweep of the padded fascia - and a choice of four colours for the hood.

Maserati has put added emphasis on the famous trident badge. As well as the usual silver one in the grille, the Spyder has a new and smaller coloured version immediately above it on the bodywork. Three more are visible from the driving seat, and the motif reappears in several out-of-the-way corners too.

The thing is, this is all quite tastefully done, and it doesn't seem excessive. And for the style-conscious, it's good to see a very elegant Maserati clock on the fascia. Very straightforward speedometer, rev-counter and minor gauges too, sometimes affected by shadows or reflections.

Individualising The Spyder

Cars like this need a personalisation programme these days. Hence the Officine Alfieri Maserati catalogue which offers all this kind of thing, including, I think I read before turning the page quickly, the opportunity to have the owner's name displayed on the car somewhere.

Standing on a shorter wheelbase than the 3200 GT, itself about to be superseded by a new Spyder-based coupé, the open two-seater has a hood which folds, with pressure on a switch, into or out of a metal-topped compartment ahead of the boot. The hood automatically locks itself into place when closing. There's no fumbling about with windscreen-rail catches. When the Spyder is running hood-down, a wind deflector behind the higher-backed seats does a pretty good job, although a tall driver sits just a shade too high for it to be completely wig-protecting.

Luggage space is nothing special. In a convertible like this it rarely is. Although Maserati says the boot will take a pair of golf bags, it won't take much more if they're accommodated. And there's barely room between the seats and the rear bulkhead for a couple of postcards.

Of course, none of this matters a single, solitary tinker's cuss. If you need to haul luggage around, take out the saloon or estate which occupies space in almost every Maserati owner's garage. It's how the car performs, handles and stops that counts.

Absolutely no complaints about the performance. The Spyder goes like a rocket, reaching 60mph in about 4.9 seconds and able to continue, perhaps on the Hangar Straight at Silverstone, to something like 176mph.

Dropping The Turbo

That's faster than the 3200 GT, although with a completely different engine. Ferrari didn't fancy the previous 370bhp turbocharged job, and the Spyder has a magnificent unblown 390bhp 4.2-litre V8 which also produces 332lb/ft of torque at 4500rpm. This dry-sump unit is smaller in size and lighter in weight, and many of its ancillaries are more compactly located. There's a lot of Ferrari F1 experience here, although, as with other elements of the Spyder, Maserati staff reckon they've made improvements the parent company hasn't used yet.

The point about the 90-degree V8 is that there's nothing lumpy or peaky about the way it performs. Maserati now has the kind of seamless power delivery a car like this deserves. And the Spyder will potter down to very low speeds in traffic without a hiccup. Nothing fussy or temperamental about it.

There's a lot of high-tech equipment on board, not least in the Skyhook (meaningless word, but actually rather a good name) active suspension system. It has normal and firmed-up sport settings, reacts as near instantaneously as makes no difference, and operates via a system which doesn't use a fixed number of separate "stops" but is infinitely variable between its outer limits.

Regardless of what any magazine test may suggest, I point-blank refuse to believe that a system like this can ever be fully extended out on the open road by anybody who isn't certifiable. But Maserati has got round that very neatly, by saying that the Spyder is a car to enjoy on a track day.

The brakes have an uprated Bosch ABS/anti-slip regulation system with a larger servo unit, and although there are few places on the public road where you can really try out this kind of thing, Maserati claims more powerful braking from less push on the pedal.

Choice Of Boxes

Transmissions next. Hmm. At £65,750 the standard Spyder GT (called that even though it's a soft-top) has a six-speed manual gearbox. In the car I tried, changing to second, either from first or round the corner and back from third, wasn't easy. In fact, the box sometimes rebelled. At the launch, my driving partner and I both had the same problem.

But I'd go for the manual rather than the electro-hydraulic Cambiocorsa transmission, with four selectable shift modes, which adds £3000 to the price. With the Cambiocorsa set-up you can either get the car to do all the gear changing for you, or do the work yourself by using the F1-style paddles behind the steering wheel.

(Thinks: can't we get a better word than "paddles"? It doesn't come within 50 paces of explaining what these controls are really like.)

There's no doubt, as Maserati says, that the system is very useful in that you can decide when to change gear, perhaps when having over-cooked things into a blind corner, without needing to take a hand off the steering wheel rim. But what we're talking about here is a manual gearbox with automatic actuation.

It may be sophisticated (which it is, to a remarkable degree) and it may be lighter than a conventional automatic, but the time taken to get out of third, say, and properly into fourth, is about the same as is needed in a Corsa Easytronic. You can play about with throttle pressure and all the rest of it, but there's still that lag as the system automatically does the same clutch-out, leave-third, into-fourth, clutch-in and away-we-go routine you would do yourself with a conventional manual box.

One thing in the Cambiocorsa's favour is that it comes with the dinkiest little T-bar reverse selector imaginable, on the centre console (pictured).

All things considered, Maserati has a splendid machine here. The Spyder isn't designed as an ultimate blank-cheque supercar, more as a rival for the Porsche Carrera 2 and Jaguar XKR convertibles, with which the company says it's also competitive on service requirements.

It beats them on power output, maximum speed and 0-60mph time. Does it have the name, the charisma, the build quality to compete against them? No doubt about the first two attributes, while the engineering, materials, finish and quality control at the factory in Modena, now that Ferrari has thrown out the junk with which it used to be equipped, are pretty impressive too.

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