A grand tourer is really just a sports car in a luxury wrapper. You get power and performance, of course, but in a package you could use as a daily driver and enjoy on a road trip. If we hop in our time machine, Maserati essentially invented this class of car 75 years ago with the 1947 A6 1500. Their latest version, the new 2024 GranTurismo, is every bit the chic luxury sports coupe we’ve come to expect.

Maserati is a quintessentially Italian brand, so where better to see how their newest creation performs than Italy? I spent a day cruising the autostrada and thrashing the pavement on the country roads north of Rome in both the Modena and Trofeo models (as well as the electric Folgore).