Maxed-out Maser

Maserati is rightfully keen to remind buyers at the upper end of the luxury market of its long-standing presence in the four-door sports saloon segment.

This comes as Porsche begins drumming up business with its four-door, front-engined Panamera and Aston Martin announces its new four-door Rapide.

The Ferrari-owned Italian luxury sports car marque responds to the competition with its Quattroporte Sports GT S Awards Edition, which glams-up an already exotic four-passenger sedan.

With its own exclusive pearlescent metallic grey paint job, burnished chrome exterior trim and dark grey 20-inch Multi Trident wheels set off by highly-polished brake calipers, the Sports GT S Awards Edition Maser will relegate "normal" Quattroportes into the also-ran category.

Inside, the new model also gets a more dressed-up interior with the Poltrona Frau leather seat trim accented by perforated Alcantara featuring a new "undulated" pattern, Alcantara roof lining, brushed satin aluminium door sills and Piano Black satin-finish wood trim.

The practical, four-passenger nature of the Pininfarina-styled Quattroporte is underlined in the Awards Edition by the boot, which gets chrome detailing as well as a leather side pocket.

The Awards Edition Quattroporte uses the powered-up 323kW/490Nm 4.7-litre engine seen in the (previously) range-topping Sport GT S version, driving through the ZF MC-Auto Shift transmission.

The Awards Edition tag comes from the current-model Quattroporte's gathering of 56 international awards since it was launched six years ago. It is Maserati's biggest-selling model ever.

Pricing and specification will be announced when the Quattroporte Sports GT S Awards Edition arrives in Australia in early 2011.

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