MATT STONE

A century of quintessentially Italian carmaking and motorsports…

Maserati enthusiasts and other aficionados of exotic Italian cars from the 1960s should be familiar with the original Ghibli, a V-8 powered two-door designed by Giorgetto Giu­giaro, who would later pen the Bora, Merak (see “Star Turn”), and original Quattroporte for Maserati. The company produced coupe and spider variants of the Ghibli from 1967 through […]

Baroness Josephine von Krieger was purchasing a graduation gift when she placed an order with Mercedes-Benz in April 1936 for a 540K Special Roadster. The recipient, her 19-year-old son, Henning, shared his mother’s passion for luxury automobiles—Josephine owned a Franay-bodied Packard Cabriolet and a Rolls-Royce Phantom II—and he had come of age driving elegant, high-performance […]

When prompted with a press of the throttle pedal, the new Maserati Quattroporte’s 524 hp twin-turbo V-8 spooled up quickly, just as the big sedan’s 4.6 zero-to-60-mph time suggests it would. My passenger—Maserati’s CEO, Harald Wester, an engineer-turned-executive—asked what I thought of the car’s lack of turbo lag. He smiled when I confirmed that indeed […]

Murmurs circulated through the crowd as the Duesenberg Model J rolled up on stage at Gooding & Co.’s Pebble Beach auction in August 2011. Designed by Murphy Coach Builders and first delivered to Captain George Whittell Jr., the Art Deco sporting coupe (chassis J-460) boasted a long wheelbase, a low-slung brushed aluminum roof, a lavish […]

In his 1978 top-40 hit “Life’s Been Good,” Joe Walsh sang about his Maserati doing 185 mph (and about losing his license as a result of driving that fast). The boast was as dubious as the rock star’s run for president two years later. No road-going Maserati of that era could achieve such a speed. […]