granturismo innovation
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the space grace the coupé body style is not an innovation the two-door four-seat coupé is not new to the automotive world either for maserati was one of the founders of the segment in 1946 but the maserati granturismo is the first modern coupé that over-delivers on the visual promise of its sensual body inside the doors of the granturismo you find the space of a large specialist four-seat sedan inside the body of a stunning two-door coupé like so much about this car it offers the best of both worlds without compromising its strengths to do it almost half a metre longer than the maserati gransport it has delivered far more legroom than the average in this class plus almost a metre of headroom maserati has achieved this by stretching the distance between front and rear wheels then designing short overhangs at both the front and the rear of the car to maintain its design integrity normally a wheelbase this long would be found in a sedan with much longer overhangs and at least half a metre
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length and strength maserati shocked the world with the unique chassis-engineering theme in the breakthrough quattroporte and the granturismo carries over the stunning sedan s rear-biased weight distribution it has achieved this by containing the heaviest and most-critical components of the car the engine the gearbox and the differential between the front and rear axles this makes the granturismo the only car in the class with more than 51 percent of its weight over the rear axle to understand why maserati has gone to great lengths to achieve this even a brief study of modern formula one cars or indy 500 winners will explain it all they all have more than 60 percent of their mass over the rear axle and even maserati s dominant mc12 fia gt racing car has this same trait having a rear-weight bias gives the granturismo a handling grip and accident-avoidance capability similar to modern racing cars yet having an ultra-long wheelbase large wheels and the option of the skyhook active r
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smooth co-operator designing a car to fulfill both the sports-car traditions of maserati and the luxury demanded by a busy day-to-day life took clever thinking most people would not suppose that the granturismo s automatic transmission and its skyhook active suspension system had a reason to communicate one of them is a stunningly smooth and fast gear shifter capable of coping with higher engine speeds than any other automatic transmission in the world the other normally keeps the body riding smoothly by making more than 100 decisions about the bumps in the road every second then instantly altering the stiffness of the suspension to cope yet while the well-proven transmission is one of the smoothest in the world maserati s engineers use the skyhook system to make the shifts even smoother the skyhook system normally runs the car at its softest possible setting and then stiffens and of course subsequently re-softens itself to deal with bumps as the wheels roll over them however because t
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cornering the light market no other car maker knows more about led lighting than maserati the 3200gt was the first production car in the world to use light emitting diodes in its famous boomerang tail lights and maserati has built a wealth of led knowledge since then this knowledge has culminated in the stunning new rear light design on the granturismo each light assembly uses 96 leds some of them are running lights some are stop lights and others are used just as turn indicators the beauty of leds is that they illuminate faster and more intensely than conventional bulbs last longer and use less energy to run as well while there are seven separate parts in each taillight another advantage is that nobody will never mistake a granturismo in traffic at night even from half a mile away the taillights make it as much of a stand-out performer at night as its pininfarina body design makes it during the day but maserati s mastery of lighting does not stop at the granturismo s shapely tail the
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the music store if the standard six-speaker granturismo audio system is a thing of wonder then the optional bose surround sound system is a thing of awe it is not just the number of speakers involved but where maserati has located them the exotic materials they use and even their priority in the granturismo s engineering plans this sound system was designed into the car from its inception obviously it was a core part of the early discussions on the interior luxury but it was on the agenda from the earliest engineering and weight distribution discussions as well maserati has long believed that flagship audio quality should be designed in to a car from the start and the quality of the quattroporte s audio is evidence enough so the bose surround sound system demanded 11 speakers to provide the perfect balance and quality of sound for every occupant of the granturismo bose developed special neodymium iron-boron magnets for the granturismo s speakers with 10 times the energy density of co
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