The new Pininfarina-styled Maserati Quattroporte is all set to make an appearance at the Frankfurt Motor Show this September.
Traditionalists will remember the 'Quattroporte' name which was first used on a Maserati in 1963, and was a performance icon for its time.
With a 400 bhp V8 under the hood, the new Quattroporte will happily take on a bevy of other Italian, German and Japanese challengers on whose turf it's staking a claim.
Sure, given its extra weight (four doors here, instead of the 3200 coupe's two), acceleration is unlikely to worry the Enzos and the Murcielagos of this world, but the Maser should still get to 160 kph in about six seconds and top speed is likely to be in the region of 280 kph.
Since this is not a Ferrari, there'll be more to the Quattroporte than just performance. Maserati claim an "extraordinarily spacious cabin" and there will be a wide range of "bespoke options" that will allow buyers to personalise their car down to the smallest detail.
With new cars like this Quattroporte and the forthcoming Kubang 4x4, it seems there's no stopping the Maserati comeback which started with the 3200GT.
Two-thirds of the way
An inflamed lower back which made getting into the car difficult, let alone driving it, didn't faze Narain Karthikeyan at the F1 track at Monza.
Narain put it all behind him to post two podium finishes on the fastest track on the Superfund World Series calendar.
Karthikeyan started well in the first race, taking the lead from Stephane Sarrazin before making a mistake and having to settle for a clean third place.
The second race also saw a typically quick start, with Karthikeyan making up two positions and getting into third place behind his Tata-Carlin team-mate Bruce Jouanny. Then things got difficult.
"In places I was even a little quicker than Jouanny, but we were running identical downforce
