The Quattroporte of my dreams is still as elegant in New Mexico as it was in Modena

Several years ago, I was watching a National Geographic show on the advanced Maserati factory in Modena, Italy, and I got hooked on these lovely Italian cars. I decided then and there that I needed to have a Quattroporte.

For six months, I searched the country for the right one. Then a friend in Chicago told me about ValEuroSport, a luxury and exotics dealer in Apex, North Carolina. I called and spoke with the owner, Val, and told him what I was looking for. Soon I was looking at a hundred photos of this lovely 2007 model. The story is that some fellow had bought this Quattroporte new but then died just a year later. His wife refused to sell the car and instead kept it in her garage for seven years. Every so often, her son would start it up, but it wasn’t really driven again. Finally, she sold it to the dealership.

I caught a flight to North Carolina, met Val, and drove the car. It had only 14,000 miles on it at the time. I was blown away at the craftsmanship, the power, the way it moved down the road—so I bought it, flew home, and had it shipped to me.

Mine is the Sport GT trim, one of 97 built in this color—Blu Oceano—and one of just 14 in the U.S. It has an Italian leather interior and carbon-fiber accents and is powered by a 425-hp Ferrari-built 4.7-liter V-8, with a six-speed automatic and paddle shifters. It has Pirelli P Zeros on 20-inch alloy wheels, with six-piston Brembo brakes. I love this car for many reasons, including its elegant Pininfarina body. I also love it because it is sedate enough to behave around town, but if you want it to be a sports car, it will get up and go like a bat out of hell. In my neck of the woods here in New Mexico, there’s plenty of open road for that. To me, the Quattroporte rivals any other luxury sport sedan on the planet, and I don’t see myself ever selling it.