Quattroporte: Premier Car in the Second City
Banishing the Blues and Cheating the Wind

“My Kind of Town, Chicago Is”; that’s what Frank Sinatra sang in the movie Robin and the 7 Hoods. Last summer we visited the Windy City, and explored just a small portion of what that great metropolis has to offer. From behind the wheel of a Maserati Quattroporte Executive GT it was all the more exciting and colorful. 

Chicago is renowned for many things – steaks, blues music, hard-hitting sports teams, a fiercely innovative artistic heritage embodied by The Second City improvisational troupe and The Steppenwolf Theatre Company – but one of the most enduring features is undoubtedly the ‘L’ – the elevated railways that run above some of the streets downtown. The distinctive steel architecture of the ‘L’ has been seen in many movies such as Risky Business and While you Were Sleeping; and while it made a great photographic backdrop for the distinctive, elegant lines of the Pininfarina-styled super-sedan, for us a large part of what made the elevated railways so good was the way the magnificent sound of the Ferrari-built V8 engine reverberated in the confined space. Actually, we have to admit that the contrast between the functional industrial look of the tracks makes a good contrast to the Maserati's elegant and sophisticated form.

The roads running under the ‘L’ can be pretty rough, often potholed and rutted. Not that we had need to worry too much; the Skyhook suspension of the Quattroporte soaked up the worst the roads could throw at us while helping keep complete control over the car. The Maserati engineers have worked long and hard to devise a system which is ideally matched to the nature of the Quattroporte – able to be supple or firm, relaxed or taut, and able to switch in a small fraction of a second.

Another feature of downtown Chicago is bridges – and there are lots of them. The Chicago river wends its way southwards, paralleling the shore of Lake Michigan; it used to empty into the lake, but the pollution it carried frequently contaminated the fresh water supplies taken from the lake. The city came up with an ingenious solution – reverse the flow of the river! A 28-mile-long canal was built to take the water to the south-west, with the long journey across the plains cleansing the water. So water now flows out of Lake Michigan, eventually reaching the Gulf of Mexico.

What with the river itself and the canal, there are numerous bridges across the city – and because the canal was also to be used for shipping, lift  bridges were engineered. The result is massive yet elegant iron structures rising alongside the road, with white-stone buildings at each end containing the lift machinery. Wacker Drive, made immortal in The Blues Brothers, runs alongside the river, and more than a dozen of these bridges can be seen; and since our photographer felt that the area made a particularly photogenic location, we circled the area several times. Even without Jake and Elwood at the helm, the Quattroporte turned heads of passers-by on every street corner; elegant and understated it may be, but it is plainly far removed from mainstream ‘cookie cutter’ sedans.

The interior of the car was equally worthy of admiration; the beige seats with contrasting cuoio piping looked great, with the Maserati Trident standing proud on the headrest. All Maseratis feature dual-zone climate controls; the Executive GT variant also had additional controls allowing rear-seat occupants to adjust the climate control settings. As with the main console, the rear controls are encased in fine wood, the ideal complement to the Poltrona Frau leather – the Alcantara headlining was the finishing touch.

Just to the north of the Chicago river is another famous city landmark – the House of Blues. The city has long been an inspiration for musicians, both natives of the town and people who moved there: Benny Goodman, Muddy Waters and of course the rock group Chicago. The House of Blues was opened by Elwood himself – Dan Aykroyd - back in 1996, and quickly established itself as one of the premier venues of the area, playing host to acts such as The Who, Al Green and Pearl Jam. Its distinctive architecture is modeled after an opera house in Prague; all sloping lines and metal cladding, it looks more like a high-security building housing secret experiments than a music venue. As we lined the Maserati up for a few photos the attendants at the parking garage volubly expressed their approval of the Italian beauty; the Quattroporte may be a high-end sedan but it never seems to incite jealousy, only admiration and sometimes a little good-humored envy.  But then anyone who has seen Ferris Bueller’s Day Off knows Chicago parking garage attendants have an appreciation for fine Italian machinery.

The Quattroporte is a fine car for cruising unobtrusively through urban traffic – sitting in luxurious comfort as the 4.2-liter engine purrs discreetly. But to be honest, however accomplished the Maserati is in the city, it’s simply not its raison d’etre, so we headed away from the center of town on one of the area's many freeways. The roads were busy so there were few opportunities to exploit all 400 horsepower on tap – but we made the most of them when they presented themselves, sending the Maserati shooting forward in a manner that belied its size and luxurious interior.

Turning off the interstate we found some more challenging roads which were virtually free from traffic – exactly what we were looking for. The Maserati leaped ahead as we pressed the throttle pedal and the next corner came rushing towards us; the Brembo brakes proved more than adequate to slow our charge. Turning into the curve, the steering was wonderfully communicative, ensuring we knew exactly how much grip was available; the feedback giving us ever more confidence in just how hard the Quattroporte could be pushed. Surging down the next straight, spurred on by the glorious howl from the exhaust, we tore into a tremendous sequence of bends. With the Sport button pressed the Skyhook suspension reacted with just the same speed, but exerted yet more control, firming up the ride to minimize body roll.

Through corner after corner, down straight upon straight the Quattroporte was in its element – every input by the driver was responded to immediately as the tires dug themselves into the road surface with a seemingly inescapable grip. It was one of those precious times when everything came together; driver and car in perfect harmony, acting as one to cover distances at improbable speeds. Eventually it was time to drop the pace by several notches, time to head back towards Continental Autosports who had lent us the car for our tour of Chicago and its environs.

We had time to reflect on the miles and experiences of the previous couple of days. We had found that Chicago is exceptionally varied; bustling streets, excellent restaurants, impressive architecture. History and geography have combined to create a fascinating place, a city with attitude and swagger, yet one with some glorious treasures at its heart. And the Maserati Quattroporte had proved to be perfectly at home in this Midwestern setting – ideal for cruising the city, wonderfully elegant but with a sporting prowess, a comfortable, well-appointed cabin finished in the finest materials, and able to seriously turn it on when the road allowed. “My kind of town, Chicago is” – especially at the wheel of a Maserati. Our grateful thanks to Continental Autosport for the loan of the 2008 Quattroporte Executive GT.