Maserati Quattroporte review

Obviously, being an eight-and-a-half year-old car, the Quattroporte’s interior is as off the pace as an asthmatic Tough Mudder smoking a cigar.

Oh, it’s enormously roomy in the back, and the lashings of glossy carbon fibre trim scream intent, but up front the stalks, mirror buttons and window switches all look and feel like they’ve been borrowed from your last Spanish holiday hire hatchback.

There’s nowhere to slot the enormous key so you’ll have awkward questions asked about the lump in your pocket and trying to extract your phone from the wireless charging void is like attempting to retrieve your debit card from a jammed-up ATM. For this, you’re asked to part with £125,000, remember.

This isn’t an especially memorable cockpit, but the dials (physical, with a screen betwixt them) are clear and refreshingly easy to read – far better than BMW’s latest efforts – and the steering wheel isn’t festooned with more buttons than your nan’s cardigan. The visibility is really rather laudable.

And because the Quattroporte is from that distant pre-Brexit, pre-Trump, pre-Covid world, it doesn’t come as standard with the annoying features now sullying cars by law. Lane-keep assistance doesn’t default to ‘on’, and doesn’t wrest the wheel from your grip if you dare to overtake a cyclist.

Yes, there are idiosyncrasies. The boot release is on the ceiling. The touchscreen is obviously configured for left-hand drive, so in the UK you’ll have to ask your passenger to turn on your heated steering wheel for you. You sit too high and the pedals are more offset than Owen Wilson’s nose.

The touchscreen works capably with your lost smartphone (though the native home screen and interface is very fiddly) and you get a posh clock that’s tricky to read. Happily, you’ve got so much potency under your right foot it’s highly unlikely you’ll be running late. And if you are most people will presume you’re on a diplomatic mission for the Italian government.