Tuesday, June 16, 2009

The Maserati Quattroporte Car Pictures




The Maserati Quattroporte Car Pictures
The Maserati Quattroporte is a luxury four-door sedan made by Maserati of Italy. The name translated from Italian literally means "four doors". There have been five generations of the car, each separated by a period of roughly five years. The Duo Select transmission was available at the launch of the fifth generation Quattroporte, in 2004. Duo Select was an advancement of the CambioCorsa unit first used in the Maserati Coupe. It is a Ferrari based semi-automatic transmission, located at the rear of the car.

Because of reliability problems and rough shifting with the Ferrari based semi-automatic transmission,[citation needed] a full automatic transmission with 6 speeds (by ZF) was presented at the Detroit Motor Show in January 2007 with the first cars delivered right after the launch, marketed as the Maserati Quattroporte Automatica. The Automatica was made available with paddle-shifters on the Sport GT model as standard, but on the base model and the Executive trim levels paddles became an optional extra. With the Automatica, Maserati completely redesigned the under pinning of the car to fit the new conventional automatic transmission and torque converter right behind the engine. They also converted to a wet sump oiling system for cost saving purpose. For the same reasons, the wet sump method is also featured on the up-and-coming Maserati GranTurismo.

Only 5,700 Quattroportes were made in 2006. In 2009, the Aston Martin Rapide will be the Quattroporte's main rival as the market, trim, and exclusivity will be very similar, although it will be powered with a V12 engine and will be much more expensive. Also in 2008/2009 the Porsche Panamera will be on sale, creating more competition to the high-end luxury saloon segment. Maserati did not sell any 2008 models of the Quattroporte in North America. Images of the 2009 facelifted Quattroporte appeared on the Internet on the 30th of January 2008. The car made its official début at the 2008 Geneva Motor Show. Also making the debut was the Quattroporte S, featuring the same 4.7L V8 as the Maserati GranTurismo S. It has 317 kW (431 PS; 425 hp) of power and 490 N·m (361 lb·ft) of torque. It is expected to go on sale at the end of 2008. A Quattroporte Sport GT S is also offered with 323 kW (439 PS; 433 hp) of power.

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