Maserati Ghibli S: Marque of the trident

Maserati's sporty executive saloon, the three-litre V6 Ghibli S. Photos / Supplied

Matt Greenop savours a fine example of Italian engineering

Exclusive is a magic word. Not that you'd believe it, the way that it's bandied about these days, applied often to things that are no more exclusive than anything else is. It's a label that brands want applied to them. We like cars that are seen as it, we want to live at addresses that are perceived as it.

Image 1 of 9: Maserati Ghibli S. Photo / Supplied

Boiled down, it means excluding other things. In the branding context it means excluding people who can't afford it. But what makes a car brand exclusive? Exclusivity obviously means expensive - but scarcity also comes into it. A Rolls-Royce wouldn't be as exclusive if it was $20,000 and came with a free wok.

I was at a Maserati launch in Australia recently, driving the Ghibli S, and that magic word came up. There's no doubt that this grand Italian marque is deserving of the label. But with its volume set to quadruple, will it still be?

As the grand alliance between Fiat and Chrysler shows that platform flexibility can work between relatively cheap and sophisticated makes, one has to wonder - will this model, with its very non-Maserati pricing, dilute the brand's exclusive image?

Ghibli is part of Maserati's push to expand its range to fill all gaps - it's based on the Quattroporte platform, and the family resemblance is more than just a passing one. It's aimed at the same sandpit that BMW 5 Series and the Mercedes-Benz E-Class occupy - hoping that Italian passion and style will win some buyers who'd normally be looking at sensible and efficient Germanic machines.

The Ghibli range is far tighter than it is in Europe, with the Q4 all-wheel-drive system that's also available on Quattroporte deemed too expensive to develop for right-hand drive. We do, however, get the diesel version, a frugal four-door that doesn't sound very Maserati but looks the part for 6L/100km. Then there's the V6, and at the top of the tree, with a pounding 301kW three-litre V6 making 550Nm, is the S.

It's got all of the grace and poise that we've come to expect for any car wearing
the trident, but with a few surprises from the Fiat toybox - switchgear and touchscreen from the far more pedestrian 300C, for instance.

But while there might be some shared stock - and it happens with nearly every single brand these days - this doesn't mean that the Ghibli feels cheap. It can't, Italy would resign.

The interiors are still that mix of woodgrains and quality leathers, there's a nice note and the occasional barrage of backfires on overrun and it undoubtedly looks the part. And it looks the part at a whisker under $150,000 - to get into the serious end of the Maserati arsenal will still cost you serious money.

After driving the car on carefully chosen Italian roads at its global launch last year, I knew that the Ghibli could handle and stop. In Italy. Put the steering wheel on the right side and put it on our roads and it was always going to be a different story.

Our drive route in Australia was a mix of back country roads, climbs and twisty track that would have been hard work in the Quattroporte.

The good news is, the driver is still the focus here - even more so with the wraparound cockpit and excellent seating position, allowing absolute comfort for maximum attack, or Sunday cruise. It's perfectly tractable as a family four-door, with a reasonable amount of leg room in the back, but get rid of the passengers, flick the auto 'box over into manual mode, push a magic button and it's all on.

The V6 revs quickly and cleanly, not quite giving the aural symphony that the V8 Maseratis are capable of, but still with the stroppy family cackle. It's this guise that our slick black Ghibli adopted for a quick run through the Gold Coast hinterland, across the NSW border and back after lunch at Byron Bay.

This is hippy town. Signs at the ends of driveways advertised the likes of crystal healing and yoga retreats, but we were feeling more than relaxed on a sunny day with a fairly empty roading network to see how the little Italian translated. Whale song CDs were undoubtedly interrupted and there's a very good chance we stuffed up the rhythm of a drum circle - but it's hard to apologise for that.

As the roads got worse - flood damaged, pot-holed, crumbling edges and worse - even with the big 20-inch rims fitted to our test car, the Ghibli's compliance was impressive.

The light V6 didn't see the front end get unsettled at all when turning into some of the tighter corners hard, even when a roading anomaly introduced itself halfway through a bend.

After the fun was had, the 15-speaker Bowers & Wilkins sound system playing its happy tune and the trans slipped back into D, it was as compliant and behaved as anything else on the road puddling up the sprawling Gold Coast Highway, playing spot the speed camera. (Three, by the way.)

Maserati's plans in New Zealand and Australia essentially revolve around double volume - and Ghibli is how it expects to achieve a lot of this very ambitious growth. The Maserati Levante SUV is coming next year, and that too is likely to get a few more Kiwi bums on Italian leather.

It might be cheaper than the GranSports and such, and the trident may give a plasticky thuck rather than a pleasing metallic ping when you flick it with your finger, but it's still a Maserati, and whether it's at this end of the range, or up at the top, that all-important exclusivity will be maintained.