STRESA, Italy – Ermenegildo Zegna, the chief executive of the luxury fashion house founded by his grandfather and namesake, and Harald Wester, the boss of Maserati, are sitting opposite one another in a pair of matching wingback chairs.
I’m among an ensemble of journalists gathered in the Ernest Hemingway suite in the Grand Hotel des Iles Borromées in Stresa (where the celebrated American author stayed while convalescing from a wound he sustained in World War One) and we’re listening to the Italian and German executives wax lyrical about Zegna’s sumptuous mulberry silk fabric being available as a trim option on the Ghibli range.
Their finely orchestrated duet in celebration of Italian design and luxury craftsmanship hits a bum note, however, when Signore Zegna suggests occupants of a Ghibli festooned in Zegna fabric and tactile leather will feel blissfully “wrapped in a cocoon”, but Herr Wester interrupts him.
“Being at the wheel of a Maserati will never be an insulated experience”, he hastens to add. “Let’s say the intimate interior will enhance the driver’s sense of emotional engagement.”
With Wester’s carefully chosen words echoing in my ears, I set off in the Ghibli S from the banks of Lake Maggiore en route to Trivero, where Zegna’s grandfather founded his company in 1910. Based on a shortened Quattroporte platform, the Ghibli references its older sibling’s aesthetics, but in profile it’s slightly shapelier, with tauter sheetmetal and sharper styling. As a classically proportioned berlina, the Ghibli is a thing of beauty; it is graceful and athletic in equal measure.
Mated with a slick-shifting eight-speed ZF automatic transmission, the S model’s twin-turbo V6 is soulful and melodious. As it scampers along the autostrada, the Ghibli gathers momentum with deceptive pace; its sonorous engine delivers peak torque from 1 750 to 5 000 r/min and the S dispatches slower traffic with ease. Whereas its German rivals are limited to 250 km/h by gentlemen’s agreement, the Maserati is claimed to comfortably eclipse that heady velocity…
However, as the test route meandered to the serpentine roads that interlink the picturesque towns of the mountainous Biella province, the Ghibli S revealed its nimbler side. The model is endowed with a quick and well-weighted steering setup (perhaps a trifle heavier in feel than most may expect), and the optional Skyhook adaptive air suspension provides commendable body control and pliant damping.
In these conditions, it’s best to keep the Maserati in its Sport setting, which, apart from adding exuberance to the exhaust note, optimises the transmission programme to engage gear shifts with greater alacrity and at higher revs so that the Ghibli’s standard limited-slip differential may catapult the sedan out of tight bends with grin-inducing zeal.
With the route ending on the Zegna Panoramic road, about halfway between Trivero and Rosazza, there was time to peruse the Ghibli’s interior. The leather-trimmed cabin is grand and handsome – if minimalist compared with that of its Quattroporte brother – and the texture of the thick-woven Zegna silk fabric (if specified in combination with Poltrana Frau leather) resembles that of plush tweed, as opposed to, say, a lady’s scarf. Some of the minor controls, as well as the interface of the seven-inch infotainment touchscreen, were evidently sourced from the Chrysler-half of the FCA Group, but tight rear legroom is arguably the Maserati’s biggest drawback.
Ultimately, the Ghibli S cannot match headlining super sedans in terms of outright performance or technological prowess, but as a driver-engaging luxury vehicle and objet d’art, it is nothing short of sublime… the Maserati’s natural rivals, usually Teutonic in origin, seem overwrought, insular contrivances by comparison.
Perhaps Herr Wester’s passionate interjection was a masterstroke of salesmanship, but in light of our world’s maniacal pursuit of perfection, the Ghibli S does seem tailor-made for those who have succeeded in life, but not at the cost of abandoning their dreams – or forgetting their passions.