From the far reaches of Snowdonia to south-east London in three hours and 57 minutes is pretty good going. With Bank Holiday traffic, even better. And with change from an £80 fill-up, including an ill-advised stop at Telford services. Impressive.
The real surprise is that all this practicality and good sense should come in a car so good-looking that a passing daredevil motorbiker put both thumbs up as a show of respect somewhere around Birmingham.
The Ghibli V6 has Maserati’s first-ever diesel engine — anathema to some car bores maybe, but drive it for 500 miles with an mpg-rate up near the late forties and you might disagree. There’s no diesel groan, just a serene limousine hum from the ultra-slick cabin; though the Sport button adds some aggro V8-style sound effects should the urge take you.
It can handle the twists and turns of mountain switchbacks when required, but this is a solid, heavy car built to eat up miles smoothly, swiftly and without any fuss. Driving at 90mph feels like a Sunday stroll, other cars come and go like blips on the edges of radar.
The new four-door Ghibli (named after a two-seat Maser from the Seventies) has plenty of German competition in the practical and comfortable stakes of course, but none can boast the badge, the curves, that iconic engine grille.
Arriving home ahead of schedule is bittersweet. Some long journeys tire you out and leave you desperate for a lie-down. Others make you wonder where you can go next.
Maserati Ghibli Diesel V6 in numbers:
3.0 litre V6 turbodiesel
47.9 miles per gallon
155 mph top speed
275 brake horsepower
6.3 seconds from 0-62mph
£48,835 price
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