Maserati GranCabrio Sport (2012)

Maserati has introduced the GranCabrio Sport at the 2011 Geneva Motor Show to take the grand-touring GranCabrio to a new level of performance and handling. Performance and luxury refinements both inside the cabin and underneath the body panels have been saturated to create the new GranCabrio Sport.

Envisioned to give the GranCabrio a harder-edged model to sit alongside the GranTurismo S and the Quattroporte Sport GT S, the GranCabrio Sport comes with a more-pronounced dynamic look which begins at the distinctive nose with a black grille and a Trident with red accents. The dynamic look is finished with redesigned 20” Trident-like Astro-design wheels and a pair of black oval exhaust tips. Inside the GranCabrio Sport, the open-topped cabin offers a new seat design and driver-focused contents such as longer Trofeo-design gear-shift paddles and drilled aluminum pedals.

The GranCabrio Sport uses a more powerful and fuel-efficient version of Maserati’s naturally aspirated all-alloy 4.7-litre V8 engine producing 331 kW (450 horsepower and has 510Nm at the peak of its rich, thick torque curve) with a further 6% reduction in fuel consumption. The top speed of the GranCabrio Sport is 285 km/h and the 0-100 km/h sprint is now reduced to 5.2s.

The engine is mated with six-speed automatic transmission includes the super-fast MC Auto Shift software and has been developed for the GranCabrio Sport. Like in the Quattroporte Sport GT S, the MC Auto Shift gives the driver even-greater engagement by further improving gearshift response, and introducing a digital in-dash display to indicate the ideal gear-shift timing. The handling has also received attention, too, with an upgrade and revision of the Skyhook active-suspension system to give it sportier tuning, and the adoption of grooved and drilled dual-cast brake discs.

Will be on sale in all of Maserati’s 62 markets starting from summer 2011, the GranCabrio Sport also debuts a new body color for Maserati: Rosso Trionfale, inspired by the red national colors used on 1950s racing Maseratis – in 1957, Juan Manuel Fangio won his fifth F1 World Title at the wheel of a red Maserati 250F.