Neptune's Schizophrenic Child.

It’s loud and it’s fast. The Maserati Granturismo MC Stradale barks and crackles and yowls and howls as it violently sling-shots you towards an ethereal and rapidly shrinking, over-the-horizon, vanishing point. It’s such a mad and vicious assault on your senses that the only thing the limited capacity of your brain can compute is how imminent, and messy, your potentially impending death is going to be.

Constantly testing and teasing your reactions, it squirms and twitches and writhes as the agriculturally mechanical robo-shift gearbox bangs, thumps and smashes it’s way around the rev counter, bouncing off the red-line with a sledge-hammer thump that transmits itself through the body-hugging, alcantara-clad seat-backs, directly up through the spinal cortex and smashes without apology straight into your brain’s already over-worked adrenal gland. It’s a seriously addictive drug.

Eventually your survival instincts step in and you acquiesce to your responsibility for doing your part in ensuring the survival of our species, so you back off and remind yourself that you’re only meant to be popping out for the papers and a pint of milk.

Just because the Maserati is capable of doing it so quickly that you actually get home with the next day’s papers, doesn’t mean you should. Well, actually,,, it does. Of course you should.

But there’s another side to the MC, a calm, elegant and sophisticated side. Jeremy Clarkson once said of Maserati that “There’s no better way to arrive”. Six simple words that beautifully encapsulate everything about Maserati.

The MC is a stunning thing to behold. It certainly has presence, it’s big,,, very big. But it owns it’s space extremely elegantly. It doesn’t shout fast stuff at you, the fast stuff is clearly there on full display, but like a bespoke Valentino suit it’s cut and tailored to be sublime, subtle and sophisticated.

It’s lithe and curvaceous, taught and muscular. It’s Gina Lollobrigida sipping a Spritz, Claudia Cardinale dabbing Gelato from her lips, Sophia Lauren sensuously pouting spaghetti and Monica Bellucci dancing in the moonlight. Directed by Fellini.

Maserati Granturismo MC Stradale 2 Seat

Carefully slip inside and you’re drenched in finely stitched Alcantara highlighted with just the right amount of carbon fibre bling, bejewelled with that clock. Oh, that clock! The seats hug, hold and connect you as you smile at the trident taking centre-stage on the steering wheel. It’s temptuous, entrancing and inviting, good things are going to happen.

Twist the key and you’d have to be empty and soulless not to smile as it barks into life and settles into an open-throated snarl. Then, just settle back into the seat for a few moments to savour the sensory antipasto before dining out on the maelstrom-based main course that awaits.

Until the MC properly warms up it’s best to leave the crazy button in ‘Cocktail Party’ mode. A gentle pull on the carbon fibre paddle and a mechanical thud nudges through the car as a not particularly subtle confirmation of engagement. A sign of things to come.

Other than the Alcantara, Carbon Fibre, Paddle Shifts, Race Button, Semi-Bucket seats, solid ride and crazy noise, there’s very little to suggest that the Maser’ might kill you soon.

It’s comfortable and compliant and it just wafts along effortlessly between awkward gearshifts – albeit with an ever-increasing sense of urgency. It really is rather nice.

A stab on the crazy button though, out of ‘Cocktail Party’ mode and into ‘Manic Uncontrollable Grin’ mode and things begin to change. The loudness gets louder and more purposeful, it tightens up and grabs the road, it has intent. It’s like having a yappy Jack Russell constantly tugging and straining at it’s leash, barking and snapping and wanting to start a fight with everything around it.

Given the opportunity to stamp on the violent pedal and the Stradale just reaches forward, grabs the horizon and violently yanks it back towards you. The guttural yowl from the exhaust builds relentlessly into a primal scream as the linear power delivery whips the rev counter into red territory, a flick of the upshift and the primordial gearbox smashes the needle back from whence it came and challenges it to another attempt.

Maserati Granturismo MC Stradale Front Wheel Arch

The naturally aspirated Ferrari-derived V8 dutifully responds and rewards as it willingly accepts the challenge, screaming its way back into the red before being viciously smacked back again for another go. It just keeps on hurtling forward, screaming and crackling and twitching and snarling. There comes a point at which your mortality takes priority over one more gear shift, so you back off the gas for a moment or two to gather yourself together and breathe, coast back down somewhere close to legality, relax and contemplate switching to ‘Insane’ mode.

The Race button is a temptress. You know you shouldn’t, you know it could hurt in all kinds of very expensive ways. It’s a forbidden fruit, a no trespassers, tramps or hawkers, no entry, one-way only, buyer beware sign. It has no place on the roads. It should be called the ‘Do Not Press’ button. But the dark forces back at the Maserati factory know what they’re doing, they know damned well that they should never tell anyone not to press a button. Just use an Italian version of the concept – Race.

Hit it, stamp on the pedal, flick the shift, lift off, regain control, slow down and have another go. Race also translates to everything off, all life-preserving technology is disabled. The yappy terrier has suddenly turned into a wild, over-sugared feral child. It has no boundaries, no limiting influences, no respect for others, and the laws of physics are ignored, twisted, chewed up and disdainfully spat out of it’s diabolically sonorous exhausts.

The Maserati Granturismo MC Stradale never was the fastest and craziest thing you could buy back in its day, technologically it wasn’t particularly advanced, or even current. It broke no records and was occasionally derided by motoring hacks for its faults, particularly the gearbox. It’s Old Skool. It perfectly represents the last of the blood-curdlingly, unrestrained by electronics, man and machine era road cars. It’s a guaranteed classic – desirable, fun, scary, exquisitely beautiful, primal, passionate and emotive. It’s a reminder of how good things once were.

Jeremy’s statement about Maserati was succinct. However, with the MC Stradale, before you arrive, there really is no better way to get there – whichever of it’s characters you choose to go with.

Maserati Granturismo MC Stradale Black