Our Project “Mafia BOSS” has come to an end in it’s project format but will remain in the Secret Entourage family through 2012 as we add a few more components from our friends at Larini and Formula Dynamics. For the final stage of the project, we are going to recap all that took place, the experience of owning a Quattroporte GT and a review of those that helped us with this project.
Secret Entourage projects are always based on picking cars that have not been tuned to the level of what we feel acceptable. We sometimes pick cars that might have been tuned a certain way but not the way we feel does the car justice.
This particular Quattroporte was one of those experiences as we had yet to see a Maserati Quattroporte done correctly and had yet to see one done in all black. Going the black route got us a lot of criticism early on and many disagreed that doing an all black Quattroporte would be too much for such a classy car. The results proved everyone wrong once more… Thanks to ADV1’s max concave design, which proved to break the contrast of the black just perfectly, the negative thinking behind an all black Quattroporte has been wiped from people’s minds for good. Should we go back a second round, we would have picked a 10 spoke wheel instead of an 8 but would retain the concave aspect as we felt was a trend setter on this car.
For our thinking on the path we chose to take with the performance mods, we would say that there is probably not a better combination of basic performance mods you can pick as not a lot of companies offer products for this car and many of them are not reasonable. We proudly worked with Jeff over at Formula Dynamics and couldn’t have picked a better partner as his team was knowledgeable and ready to help on all occasions. Their prices were fair and they recommended all the right parts. We particularly liked that most of their parts were made and engineered by themselves rather than just selling someone else’s product. Their connection with Larini Exhaust helped us take our Quattroporte to that next level of sound and performance we were seeking. It is a shame that our next project is not a Ferrari or Maserati or it would make working with Jeff and his team again a no-brainer.
What was it like to own a Maserati Quattroporte? From our previous month’s highlight, you will probably notice that we weren’t very fond of Maserati as a whole and felt like we were put down significantly from their customer service as a brand and the quality of their cars. That said, we had some horrible experiences with the Maserati brand, especially at Maserati of Palm Beach where the General Manager felt that having squealing brakes on a car with less than 14,000 miles and new pads was acceptable, and also told us that despite knowing that it is an issue and was recognized by Maserati, he would not honor that as a warranty item because we did not purchase the car from him. We got a bit luckier at Ferrari of Ft Lauderdale where we were treated well but were recommended over $3000 of maintenance which two other shops told us was far from needed. Overall, the dealer network for Maserati has been nothing short of pathetic and disappointing.
It is very unlikely as a result of this that we will ever wonder back into that brand for that reason alone.
Finally, we want to take a moment to thank Josh at Exotic Car Specialties for all his help with installs, Nitto Tires for their Nitto Invos, Maserati Life for allowing us to share our project with thousands of fans, Jordan and his team at ADV1 and of course Jeff and his team at Formula Dynamics for helping bring this project to life.
