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This same transmission has recently revitalised the exquisite Quattroporte; in the new GT, it's a four-mode system which features a 'sport' option that permits shifts at higher engine speeds and sharpens throttle response. Pseudo-manual changes can be done either by way of column-mounted paddles or by nudging the gear-lever left.

Whatever way you slice it, it's an old school auto. 'Non-sportivo', as they say, especially for a racy new Maserati coupe.

Styling? It's always a subjective issue, but never more so than here. "We didn't want to create a B-version Ferrari," Ronchi claims, and the GranTurismo is mostly eye-popping. Highlights include the concave snout, swollen front and rear wheelarches and the curved sills which give the car a waisted, pinched look.

Jason Castriota, chief exterior designer at Pininfarina, cites the original Birdcage and 450S cars as inspiration, but you can't look at the GranTurismo without thinking of a classic Italian screen siren.

The truth is, this is a big car. It's almost five metres long, and managing those proportions is a tricky task that it doesn't completely pull off. Another few centimetres off the wheelbase would have helped, but then four full-sized adults would no longer fit comfortably inside.

The GT needs the bigger polished 20in wheels to properly fill those curvy arches (they're a pricey option: the 'Birdcage' alloys are a hum-dinging £3,079). A qualified success, then.

We leave Bolzano on the Brenner Pass, and head into the Dolomites. By any reckoning, this is an area that justifies the rather archaic notion of Grand Touring. At least Maserati has form: in the days before Ryanair, the European jet set would point their Mistrals and Ghiblis towards the mountains in search of a good time - driving in the summer, skiing in the winter.

It's two parts Bond movie, one part Pink Panther farce. Moore, Sellers, Niven and Cardinale all falling over each other.

There are 40 glaciers up here, but today every single one of them is obscured by great road-trains of tourist traffic. Sipping cocktails on a terrace in Cortina d'Ampezzo is one thing; picking your way past the German equivalent of National Lampoon's Griswold family in their RV quite another.

At one point, we join a huge coach, half a dozen bikers, 30-odd cyclists, the Swiss Family Robinson and the entire cast of The Sound of Music in a bold group attempt to round a precipitous corner simultaneously.