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From Monaco to Modena in Italy's Latest, Greatest Supercars
At this far Eastern point of the grand prix racing circuit at Monaco, it's a right turn at the roundabout to join the straight that flows into the tunnel. On the left there's the Mediterranean Sea, but the focus is all on this car.
Floor the throttle and the exhaust note has the intensity of a pneumatic drill, and this wave of sound swamps the cabin and makes it resonate and tremble. The shift lights blink within the top section of the carbon-fiber steering wheel and just a twitch of finger on the right paddle engages 3rd gear. Even with the engine going full-bore, each cog in the transmission drops in as naturally and undramatically as if you were swallowing a sip of water.
Into the tunnel, but today there are no guardrails lining the walls. Nor are we driving a Formula 1 car. Reality is a 30-mph conga line of swarming scooters and diesel-powered hatchbacks.
But things aren't too bad. We're in a Ferrari 430 Scuderia, and we can see in our mirrors the Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione and Maserati GranTurismo that are traveling with us.
Monte Carlo. And three of Italy's finest sports cars ever.
Viva Las Vegas
Monte Carlo is Europe's Las Vegas, and they have more in common than gambling, warm climates and service-industry personnel expecting a hearty tip. Both places are united by a sense of the otherworldly, the unreal. The rising sun casts an unusual peachy glow over Monte Carlo's towering blocks of pastel-color apartments and hotels. Some 30,000 people live here, and the residents don't pay income tax (unless they're French).
The volume of exotic cars is exceptional. In a single day, we spotted two Ferrari 612 Scagliettis and three Ferrari F430s, five Bentleys, two Mercedes CLs, a Lamborghini Gallardo and a Maybach.
Back in 1950, Alfa Romeo, Ferrari and Maserati were united on the victory podium here after a famous grand prix in which winning driver Juan Manuel Fangio displayed his famously prescient race sense. Some 57 years later, the three marques have evolved from rivals to allies, united under the ownership of Fiat. Their marquee sports cars are intertwined in terms of purpose, prestige and even technology — all three feature a V8 engine that comes from a common architecture developed within the engineering office at Ferrari.
Alfa Romeo's grand prix days drew to a close in 1985, but the 8C uses a lot of lightweight, ultra-rigid carbon fiber like an F1 racer. Its chassis is adapted from the 2002 Maserati Coupe. The 450-horsepower 4.7-liter V8 has been designed by Ferrari, assembled at Ferrari, and resembles the Maserati V8. The 8C itself is assembled at Maserati's factory in Modena, not Alfa Romeo's home in Turin.
The Ferrari 430 Scuderia is just a stripped-out F430, but it has more Formula 1 technology than any road-going Ferrari. The electrohydraulic shifting mechanism for the automated manual transmission shifts gears in just 60 milliseconds, just 20 milliseconds slower than the Ferrari F2007 F1 car. The 4.3-liter V8 shares the same fundamental design as the Alfa Romeo and Maserati V8 power plants, but it puts out 503 hp. And some bloke called Michael Schumacher acted as a development driver on the 430 Scuderia project.
The Maserati GranTurismo is a two-door variant of the Quattroporte sedan and it reflects the company's recent commercial success. This 400-hp 4.2-liter V8 also has been designed and built at Ferrari, but it has its own crankshaft and cylinder heads to set it apart from the others.
Supermodels in Monaco
Parked up along the harbor quay, our three supercars are causing more commotion than three naked supermodels.
This is the Alfa Romeo 8C's first excursion out of Italy. It's easily the most beautiful and least familiar car in this group, yet the tourists want their photographs taken with the Scuderia. Even so, the cognoscenti loiter around the compact Alfa. With its cab-backward stance, voluptuous haunches and simple rear end, it's reminiscent of the Ferrari 250 GTO. The backlight and side windows are neat teardrop shapes, while the exaggerated V-shape hood is incredibly dramatic.
If passionate beauty is the Alfa's overarching impression, function is the primary message of the Ferrari Scuderia. The bodywork is sculpted to manage airflow, while the skin is punctured with vents to cool the hard-working internal components. From the rear, the Scuderia looks like a UFO, with its bubble-shaped cockpit, widely arching fenders and wing-shape diffuser. The twin silver stripes make the Scuderia's racing bias utterly clear.
While the 8C looks classical from every angle, and the Ferrari futuristic from some, the Maserati appears utterly contemporary. It's sensational from the front, as that undulating hood swoops down to the biggest mouth this side of a great white shark. To some, the rump recalls that of a Renault Megane, but this demeans the overall impression of the car's wide hips, chiseled trunk and alluring LED lamps.
Tour of the City
Everything about the Maserati GranTurismo is firm. The seats are oddly unyielding and then there's the taut ride. Yet the overall impression is exquisitely refined, and potholes around town are absorbed with a distant ker-thunk. And while the GranTurismo might be nearly as long as a luxury sedan and almost as heavy, it doesn't lumber into corners as if it were some oversize hammer thrower in the Olympics.
The Maserati V8 is set back behind the GranTurismo's front axle, so the minimal polar moment means the nose of the car swings into the corner responsively as soon as you tweak the slightly numb steering. The six-speed automatic transmission is smooth and unflummoxed by our erratic advance through traffic toward the F1 circuit's start-finish line, which is clearly marked on the boulevard along with the grid positions. In such traffic congestion, Fangio's fastest lap of 61 mph in 1950 is nothing but a dream. Yet even in these unpromising conditions, the GranTurismo has a latent sportiness that augurs well for our impending high-speed drive to Modena.
The 8C is far less happy around Monte Carlo. If the GranTurismo is firm, the Alfa is as hard as nails. The thin carbon-fiber seats are as welcoming as a park bench, and the ride is utterly uncompromising. Sure, it's a stiff, high-performance coupe, but the wheels seem to crash against any bumps in the pavement. The heavy steering demands real effort at low speed and the brake pedal travels too far before anything happens. But then you hit the throttle, the exhaust barks as an apocalyptic rumble explodes into a booming bass note, and you'll forgive the 8C anything.
The textures of the Scuderia's cockpit immediately strike you as you slide into the supportive seats. The smooth carbon-fiber weave, intricately constructed. The cold diamond-plate aluminum flooring with its reassuringly chunky welds. The yellow face of the tachometer. Press hard on the lipstick-red starter button and the V8 settles to a coarse rattle. Accelerate hard, sense the huge levels of grip, hear the V8's engine note suddenly deepen to a bellow beyond 3,000 rpm.
The problem is, traffic-choked Monte Carlo gives us little chance to open her up. So we make for the hills around the principality.
Destination, Italy
We shrug off the crowds of Monte Carlo and head toward Italy along the coast. The Alfa, Ferrari and Maserati charge hard through the traffic, sucking on cool coastal air as the traffic yields to determined driving. We turn inland at San Remo and climb into the hills, swooping along narrow roads cut into thickly wooded hillsides. We catch flashes of predatory headlights in rearview mirrors and sometimes brake lights flickering angry red.
Three distinct engine notes ricochet off the bleached stone of the low walls that line the roads: the crackle and pop of the 450-hp Alfa Romeo; the 503-hp Ferrari's monotone blare; and the 400-hp Maserati's muted rumble.
The Maserati should be out of its depth here, but it works surprisingly well. Though it has Monte Carlo style, the firmly controlled body motions, delicate gearchanges and finger-light steering help you create an organic flow on these narrow roads where WRC rally cars have competed. The speed comes easily, although if you hustle the 4,145-pound GranTurismo too hard, the body roll and a lack of high-rpm power let it down. This is a refined GT, one that really can move four grown-ups across country at discreet speed. It's the cheapest car of our group, the most understated and the easiest to live with.
Of our trio, it's the Alfa Romeo that begs the most thorough examination. It's the most traditionally beautiful, with an elegant hood that plunges to the Alfa grille like a woman's low-cut dress. The surprisingly vocal exhaust goads you to up the pace, though all the while you're mindful that this is one of only two road-registered 8Cs in the world. Drop to 2nd gear and a whip-crack fires from the exhaust as the V8 surges for its redline at 7,500 rpm.
Fire home 3rd gear and the Alfa's exhaust replies with a boom. Barrel toward a bend and there's a local at the side of the road windmilling his arm to let us know the road is clear, so it's foot to the floor and a leap of faith. The car always feels supercar-rapid, but the problem lies with the dynamics produced by the aging Maserati underpinnings. The ride is unyieldingly solid, the steering is quick to respond but slow to communicate, and the brakes lack the kind of reassuring pedal feel so necessary for hard driving. All the while you're aware of what feels like an incredibly short wheelbase and a limited-slip differential that are overly keen to pitch the 3,285-pound car sideways.
The light is fading, and the pine trees are silhouetted against the warm orange glow of the Mediterranean. The Ferrari 430 Scuderia rapidly descends toward the ocean. Even when you set the suspension calibration to soft, the 2,976-pound Scuderia still communicates with perfect clarity. The steering is immediately responsive, while the carbon-ceramic brakes feel strong (there's a Darth Vader-like vacuum soundtrack that accompanies every push of the pedal), although a bit overeager to trigger the ABS. And most of all, the Ferrari feels every bit as quick as its 503 hp suggests.
Autostrada Soundtrack
The next day we're off to Modena, and the first section of autostrada is supercar heaven. Here's a slice of nirvana, a long tunnel beneath the rock, and it amplifies exhaust noise like a stack of Marshalls wired directly to the national electrical grid.
We bring the Scuderia down to 3,000 rpm in 2nd gear and lower the windows. (You know where this is going.) Take one last breath, tighten your grip on the wheel and steel yourself for the impending explosion. Thunk, the throttle pedal hits the stop. Thwack, your head hits the rampant Cavallino embroidered into the seat's headrest as all hell breaks loose.
Do not lift. Do not lift. Just try to ignore the fact that the mechanical rave happening behind your head is scaring people witless in the next lane. Under pain of death do not lift until you've kissed 8,600 rpm on at least three occasions. And you really must take it all the way to eight-six to get the full effect of the ear-bleeding soundtrack. At low-to-medium speeds, the Scuderia's V8 with its quick-response flat-plane crankshaft sounds exactly that — flat. But wind it up until the last of the shift lights mounted on the steering wheel have illuminated and it is utterly terrifying both in volume and tone.
The Alfa Romeo 8C is equally intoxicating, as this has to be the loudest production car on sale today. But, you know, it's actually a little overdone. It drones at part throttle, and the engine note writes checks that the engine can't cash because this is a fast car, but not that fast. Of course, with 70 hp more than the Maserati V8 and less weight to lug around, the 8C dusts the refined GranTurismo which, at best can be described as brisk.
There are plenty of tollbooths along the way, great for drag racing your playboy companions from adjacent booths, and the Ferrari bests Alfa beats Maserati every time. The Ferrari gets to 100 km/h (62 mph) in 3.6 seconds, the Alfa makes it in 4.2 seconds and the Maserati takes 5.2 seconds. If we had enough room for top speed, the Ferrari promises 199 mph, the Alfa Romeo will reach 182 mph and the Maserati calls it quits at 177 mph.
Astonishingly, the Scuderia is still useful now that we've left the twists and tunnels behind. It's genuinely comfortable with its suspension set to soft, far more so than the one-setting-fits-all Alfa. And it's not the noisy marbles-in-a-washing-machine experience you'd have every right to expect.
Yet there's only one car for this journey and, predictably, it's the Maserati. The swept-back C-pillars create a terrible blind spot and the front seats are oddly firm, but the build quality is now terrific and it's the only car here with cruise control and satellite navigation.
Nicolo Romeo, the Maserati Brothers and Enzo
Modena has been the center of high performance in Italy for nearly a hundred years, and it's no wonder that Enzo Ferrari and the Maserati brothers found their way here. It is practically a motoring museum, and even Ferrari's assembly plant looks like something that belongs in an art gallery.
Though it's just another industrial city in Italy, central Modena is beautiful and, if you travel south from there, the flat, almost fenland fields become lush rolling hills as the rod-straight roads start to flex in every which direction like a free-form jazz tune.
We can't resist one last thrash before it's time to return the cars. Near Zocca, a long, fast, undulating ribbon of asphalt races along the river, then bends into the hills toward sharp turns that are both wider and smoother than those we encountered above San Remo.
Bringing It Home
Here the Ferrari 430 Scuderia's steering is sensational, helping you to perfectly gauge the amount of cornering grip that remains before you break traction. It's responsive just off center, yet never makes the chassis feel nervous. And we're mesmerized by the brilliant combination of E-diff electronic differential and the electronic stability system. From the rain setting with its zero-tolerance calibration to exhibitionist, on-your-own-mate setting with the electronics switched off, there's an appropriate setting for every driver, every occasion.
On these damp roads, the Alfa Romeo 8C feels twitchy as you near the limit, and the steering awkwardly heavy, but be brave, commit to a slide and it all comes good, as the car faithfully follows the arc you mapped out in your head.
Meanwhile the Maserati GranTurismo is far too refined for this sort of silliness — and a bit short on grunt. But that's not what it's about. It's a proper GT, a rival for the Mercedes-Benz CL and Bentley Continental GT that's meant to attract people with a little fire in their eyes and an instinct for a bargain. It's fun to drive but probably better to own.
For five days, we lived in the company of these three descendants of those classic racing cars that carried drivers to the podium at Monaco in 1950, and yet we still only caught a glimpse of what it must be like to own them.
To those fortunate few who expect to take delivery of any one of these cars, we doff our caps.
Italian Job: Driving the Alfa Romeo 8C, Ferrari 430 Scuderia and Maserati GranTurismo
M
At this far Eastern point of the grand prix racing circuit at Monaco, it's a right turn at the roundabout to join the straight that flows into the tunnel. On the left there's the Mediterranean Sea, but the focus is all on this car.
Floor the throttle and the exhaust note has the intensity of a pneumatic drill, and this wave of sound swamps the cabin and makes it resonate and tremble. The shift lights blink within the top section of the carbon-fiber steering wheel and just a twitch of finger on the right paddle engages 3rd gear. Even with the engine going full-bore, each cog in the transmission drops in as naturally and undramatically as if you were swallowing a sip of water.
Into the tunnel, but today there are no guardrails lining the walls. Nor are we driving a Formula 1 car. Reality is a 30-mph conga line of swarming scooters and diesel-powered hatchbacks.
But things aren't too bad. We're in a Ferrari 430 Scuderia, and we can see in our mirrors the Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione and Maserati GranTurismo that are traveling with us.
Monte Carlo. And three of Italy's finest sports cars ever.
Viva Las Vegas
Monte Carlo is Europe's Las Vegas, and they have more in common than gambling, warm climates and service-industry personnel expecting a hearty tip. Both places are united by a sense of the otherworldly, the unreal. The rising sun casts an unusual peachy glow over Monte Carlo's towering blocks of pastel-color apartments and hotels. Some 30,000 people live here, and the residents don't pay income tax (unless they're French).
The volume of exotic cars is exceptional. In a single day, we spotted two Ferrari 612 Scagliettis and three Ferrari F430s, five Bentleys, two Mercedes CLs, a Lamborghini Gallardo and a Maybach.
Back in 1950, Alfa Romeo, Ferrari and Maserati were united on the victory podium here after a famous grand prix in which winning driver Juan Manuel Fangio displayed his famously prescient race sense. Some 57 years later, the three marques have evolved from rivals to allies, united under the ownership of Fiat. Their marquee sports cars are intertwined in terms of purpose, prestige and even technology — all three feature a V8 engine that comes from a common architecture developed within the engineering office at Ferrari.
Alfa Romeo's grand prix days drew to a close in 1985, but the 8C uses a lot of lightweight, ultra-rigid carbon fiber like an F1 racer. Its chassis is adapted from the 2002 Maserati Coupe. The 450-horsepower 4.7-liter V8 has been designed by Ferrari, assembled at Ferrari, and resembles the Maserati V8. The 8C itself is assembled at Maserati's factory in Modena, not Alfa Romeo's home in Turin.
The Ferrari 430 Scuderia is just a stripped-out F430, but it has more Formula 1 technology than any road-going Ferrari. The electrohydraulic shifting mechanism for the automated manual transmission shifts gears in just 60 milliseconds, just 20 milliseconds slower than the Ferrari F2007 F1 car. The 4.3-liter V8 shares the same fundamental design as the Alfa Romeo and Maserati V8 power plants, but it puts out 503 hp. And some bloke called Michael Schumacher acted as a development driver on the 430 Scuderia project.
The Maserati GranTurismo is a two-door variant of the Quattroporte sedan and it reflects the company's recent commercial success. This 400-hp 4.2-liter V8 also has been designed and built at Ferrari, but it has its own crankshaft and cylinder heads to set it apart from the others.
Supermodels in Monaco
Parked up along the harbor quay, our three supercars are causing more commotion than three naked supermodels.
This is the Alfa Romeo 8C's first excursion out of Italy. It's easily the most beautiful and least familiar car in this group, yet the tourists want their photographs taken with the Scuderia. Even so, the cognoscenti loiter around the compact Alfa. With its cab-backward stance, voluptuous haunches and simple rear end, it's reminiscent of the Ferrari 250 GTO. The backlight and side windows are neat teardrop shapes, while the exaggerated V-shape hood is incredibly dramatic.
If passionate beauty is the Alfa's overarching impression, function is the primary message of the Ferrari Scuderia. The bodywork is sculpted to manage airflow, while the skin is punctured with vents to cool the hard-working internal components. From the rear, the Scuderia looks like a UFO, with its bubble-shaped cockpit, widely arching fenders and wing-shape diffuser. The twin silver stripes make the Scuderia's racing bias utterly clear.
While the 8C looks classical from every angle, and the Ferrari futuristic from some, the Maserati appears utterly contemporary. It's sensational from the front, as that undulating hood swoops down to the biggest mouth this side of a great white shark. To some, the rump recalls that of a Renault Megane, but this demeans the overall impression of the car's wide hips, chiseled trunk and alluring LED lamps.
Tour of the City
Everything about the Maserati GranTurismo is firm. The seats are oddly unyielding and then there's the taut ride. Yet the overall impression is exquisitely refined, and potholes around town are absorbed with a distant ker-thunk. And while the GranTurismo might be nearly as long as a luxury sedan and almost as heavy, it doesn't lumber into corners as if it were some oversize hammer thrower in the Olympics.
The Maserati V8 is set back behind the GranTurismo's front axle, so the minimal polar moment means the nose of the car swings into the corner responsively as soon as you tweak the slightly numb steering. The six-speed automatic transmission is smooth and unflummoxed by our erratic advance through traffic toward the F1 circuit's start-finish line, which is clearly marked on the boulevard along with the grid positions. In such traffic congestion, Fangio's fastest lap of 61 mph in 1950 is nothing but a dream. Yet even in these unpromising conditions, the GranTurismo has a latent sportiness that augurs well for our impending high-speed drive to Modena.
The 8C is far less happy around Monte Carlo. If the GranTurismo is firm, the Alfa is as hard as nails. The thin carbon-fiber seats are as welcoming as a park bench, and the ride is utterly uncompromising. Sure, it's a stiff, high-performance coupe, but the wheels seem to crash against any bumps in the pavement. The heavy steering demands real effort at low speed and the brake pedal travels too far before anything happens. But then you hit the throttle, the exhaust barks as an apocalyptic rumble explodes into a booming bass note, and you'll forgive the 8C anything.
The textures of the Scuderia's cockpit immediately strike you as you slide into the supportive seats. The smooth carbon-fiber weave, intricately constructed. The cold diamond-plate aluminum flooring with its reassuringly chunky welds. The yellow face of the tachometer. Press hard on the lipstick-red starter button and the V8 settles to a coarse rattle. Accelerate hard, sense the huge levels of grip, hear the V8's engine note suddenly deepen to a bellow beyond 3,000 rpm.
The problem is, traffic-choked Monte Carlo gives us little chance to open her up. So we make for the hills around the principality.
Destination, Italy
We shrug off the crowds of Monte Carlo and head toward Italy along the coast. The Alfa, Ferrari and Maserati charge hard through the traffic, sucking on cool coastal air as the traffic yields to determined driving. We turn inland at San Remo and climb into the hills, swooping along narrow roads cut into thickly wooded hillsides. We catch flashes of predatory headlights in rearview mirrors and sometimes brake lights flickering angry red.
Three distinct engine notes ricochet off the bleached stone of the low walls that line the roads: the crackle and pop of the 450-hp Alfa Romeo; the 503-hp Ferrari's monotone blare; and the 400-hp Maserati's muted rumble.
The Maserati should be out of its depth here, but it works surprisingly well. Though it has Monte Carlo style, the firmly controlled body motions, delicate gearchanges and finger-light steering help you create an organic flow on these narrow roads where WRC rally cars have competed. The speed comes easily, although if you hustle the 4,145-pound GranTurismo too hard, the body roll and a lack of high-rpm power let it down. This is a refined GT, one that really can move four grown-ups across country at discreet speed. It's the cheapest car of our group, the most understated and the easiest to live with.
Of our trio, it's the Alfa Romeo that begs the most thorough examination. It's the most traditionally beautiful, with an elegant hood that plunges to the Alfa grille like a woman's low-cut dress. The surprisingly vocal exhaust goads you to up the pace, though all the while you're mindful that this is one of only two road-registered 8Cs in the world. Drop to 2nd gear and a whip-crack fires from the exhaust as the V8 surges for its redline at 7,500 rpm.
Fire home 3rd gear and the Alfa's exhaust replies with a boom. Barrel toward a bend and there's a local at the side of the road windmilling his arm to let us know the road is clear, so it's foot to the floor and a leap of faith. The car always feels supercar-rapid, but the problem lies with the dynamics produced by the aging Maserati underpinnings. The ride is unyieldingly solid, the steering is quick to respond but slow to communicate, and the brakes lack the kind of reassuring pedal feel so necessary for hard driving. All the while you're aware of what feels like an incredibly short wheelbase and a limited-slip differential that are overly keen to pitch the 3,285-pound car sideways.
The light is fading, and the pine trees are silhouetted against the warm orange glow of the Mediterranean. The Ferrari 430 Scuderia rapidly descends toward the ocean. Even when you set the suspension calibration to soft, the 2,976-pound Scuderia still communicates with perfect clarity. The steering is immediately responsive, while the carbon-ceramic brakes feel strong (there's a Darth Vader-like vacuum soundtrack that accompanies every push of the pedal), although a bit overeager to trigger the ABS. And most of all, the Ferrari feels every bit as quick as its 503 hp suggests.
Autostrada Soundtrack
The next day we're off to Modena, and the first section of autostrada is supercar heaven. Here's a slice of nirvana, a long tunnel beneath the rock, and it amplifies exhaust noise like a stack of Marshalls wired directly to the national electrical grid.
We bring the Scuderia down to 3,000 rpm in 2nd gear and lower the windows. (You know where this is going.) Take one last breath, tighten your grip on the wheel and steel yourself for the impending explosion. Thunk, the throttle pedal hits the stop. Thwack, your head hits the rampant Cavallino embroidered into the seat's headrest as all hell breaks loose.
Do not lift. Do not lift. Just try to ignore the fact that the mechanical rave happening behind your head is scaring people witless in the next lane. Under pain of death do not lift until you've kissed 8,600 rpm on at least three occasions. And you really must take it all the way to eight-six to get the full effect of the ear-bleeding soundtrack. At low-to-medium speeds, the Scuderia's V8 with its quick-response flat-plane crankshaft sounds exactly that — flat. But wind it up until the last of the shift lights mounted on the steering wheel have illuminated and it is utterly terrifying both in volume and tone.
The Alfa Romeo 8C is equally intoxicating, as this has to be the loudest production car on sale today. But, you know, it's actually a little overdone. It drones at part throttle, and the engine note writes checks that the engine can't cash because this is a fast car, but not that fast. Of course, with 70 hp more than the Maserati V8 and less weight to lug around, the 8C dusts the refined GranTurismo which, at best can be described as brisk.
There are plenty of tollbooths along the way, great for drag racing your playboy companions from adjacent booths, and the Ferrari bests Alfa beats Maserati every time. The Ferrari gets to 100 km/h (62 mph) in 3.6 seconds, the Alfa makes it in 4.2 seconds and the Maserati takes 5.2 seconds. If we had enough room for top speed, the Ferrari promises 199 mph, the Alfa Romeo will reach 182 mph and the Maserati calls it quits at 177 mph.
Astonishingly, the Scuderia is still useful now that we've left the twists and tunnels behind. It's genuinely comfortable with its suspension set to soft, far more so than the one-setting-fits-all Alfa. And it's not the noisy marbles-in-a-washing-machine experience you'd have every right to expect.
Yet there's only one car for this journey and, predictably, it's the Maserati. The swept-back C-pillars create a terrible blind spot and the front seats are oddly firm, but the build quality is now terrific and it's the only car here with cruise control and satellite navigation.
Nicolo Romeo, the Maserati Brothers and Enzo
Modena has been the center of high performance in Italy for nearly a hundred years, and it's no wonder that Enzo Ferrari and the Maserati brothers found their way here. It is practically a motoring museum, and even Ferrari's assembly plant looks like something that belongs in an art gallery.
Though it's just another industrial city in Italy, central Modena is beautiful and, if you travel south from there, the flat, almost fenland fields become lush rolling hills as the rod-straight roads start to flex in every which direction like a free-form jazz tune.
We can't resist one last thrash before it's time to return the cars. Near Zocca, a long, fast, undulating ribbon of asphalt races along the river, then bends into the hills toward sharp turns that are both wider and smoother than those we encountered above San Remo.
Bringing It Home
Here the Ferrari 430 Scuderia's steering is sensational, helping you to perfectly gauge the amount of cornering grip that remains before you break traction. It's responsive just off center, yet never makes the chassis feel nervous. And we're mesmerized by the brilliant combination of E-diff electronic differential and the electronic stability system. From the rain setting with its zero-tolerance calibration to exhibitionist, on-your-own-mate setting with the electronics switched off, there's an appropriate setting for every driver, every occasion.
On these damp roads, the Alfa Romeo 8C feels twitchy as you near the limit, and the steering awkwardly heavy, but be brave, commit to a slide and it all comes good, as the car faithfully follows the arc you mapped out in your head.
Meanwhile the Maserati GranTurismo is far too refined for this sort of silliness — and a bit short on grunt. But that's not what it's about. It's a proper GT, a rival for the Mercedes-Benz CL and Bentley Continental GT that's meant to attract people with a little fire in their eyes and an instinct for a bargain. It's fun to drive but probably better to own.
For five days, we lived in the company of these three descendants of those classic racing cars that carried drivers to the podium at Monaco in 1950, and yet we still only caught a glimpse of what it must be like to own them.
To those fortunate few who expect to take delivery of any one of these cars, we doff our caps.
Italian Job: Driving the Alfa Romeo 8C, Ferrari 430 Scuderia and Maserati GranTurismo
M
