Greetings, petrolheads! Today’s post regards my favourite Automotive brand: Maserati. More to the point, Mazza’s new, old GranTurismo and GranCabrio. Or old-new, as you prefer. Now, before I start, please let me make it clear I did not drive any of them. I did, instead, sit in one, hear it, read the press release and the road test from a couple of very respected, if not mainstream, sources. The new-old, or old-new, Granturismo is the second facelift of a model launched back in early 2007. Which, in turn, was based on the Quattroporte saloon from late 2003. With a V8-engine derived from a late 90s Ferrari, the 360 Modena. It’s, plain and easy, an old car. Just think for a second, what was the world back in 2003? Mercedes had just introduced the SLR McLaren, the European Union comprised 15 countries, Google was starting to take over the world, Apple was very happy selling iPods and Madonna was probably still dating people of her age. Impressive, right? That’s when papa an...

Hi there! Today’s review regards the latest generation of the Smart Fortwo. A couple of months ago, after being more… used to the looks of the thing, I decided it was time to take property of such a specimen. The logic step to someone who already has the previous two generations. This 453 Smart Fortwo – Coupé and Cabrio – marked a new beginning for the Smart brand. It can almost be regarded as a brand new start. You see, back in 2009, Daimler – Smart’s parent company, also owner of Mercedes-Benz – entered a joint venture with Renault-Nissan. Their eyes were set, I believe, on Renault’s successful Mégane hatchback, as they wanted to change the positioning of their own A-Class, until then regarded as a practical, old-people’s car, to a dynamic hatchback for younger clientele, fitting their future (and very successful, as sales figures show) design revolution. Apart from some technical knowledge regarding chassis development, access to Renault’s engine pool would also...

Hello, petrolheads! Today I’m reviewing a relatively rare car: the turbocharged, facelifted version of the second-generation Smart Fortwo. Before buying one, I went to great lengths to find any sort of review of this version, in order to figure out if this version was a worthy compromise between the base MHD version and the range-topper Brabus. And I do mean great lengths, because I found no review, from whichever source, of the facelifted version – there are some from the model launch in 2007, but the facelift of 2010 brought some improvements to the engine, which could be relevant. Let’s start from the beginning. The second-generation Fortwo, launched in early 2007, was a major revolution in the Smart’s range: apart from having to mature the first’s generation flawed package, it would then be the only product left on the entire Smart lineup – the dealers were shifting the last stock of Roadsters (production stopped in November 2005) and Forfours (July 2006). Th...

Greetings, petrolheads! Today’s I’m reviewing the last-generation Audi S5 Sportback. I’ve been driving this car sporadically since 2014, but some weeks ago took it for a long business drive to Italy; after a couple of weeks driving it on very mixed roads – from snow-surrounded Alpine passes to high-speed Autobahns – I acquired a very deep insight of the car. Not going to detail the car’s design – let’s just say it’s elegant with a dynamic touch, in this case underlined by the red paint, which works out better live than on any picture. The interior follows the same formula. The driving position is totally adjustable, there’s plenty of space – except for headroom on the back, limited for anyone over 1,75m tall, and it’s beautifully put together. Material and assembly quality is first order. This unit, having covered almost 100k km in less than three years, has absolutely no squeaks nor rattles and few use marks are apparent. A word of praise for Bang&Olufsen’s soun...