Whether you’re seated in the front or back, this is a car in which almost anyone could stretch out in plenty of comfort. Taller adults won’t find rear head room that abundant, but in that respect the car isn’t unlike so many Mercedes-Benz S-Class-sized limousines. The boot is huge and, unlike in some full-sized luxury options, there are split folding seatbacks that, even though they don’t fold totally flat, permit you to carry longer loads.
However, when you sweep in behind the steering wheel, the wave of stylish material splendour you’ve been anticipating from this car never really hits home. The interior feels lavish and rich in some ways. Its leathers are smooth and soft and widely used, while the decorative lacquered carbonfibre trim on the fascia and transmission tunnel is quite appealing. But elsewhere, the cabin quality is conspicuously short of what you might reasonably expect of a near-£130,000 luxury car. The switches and secondary controls on the centre console and centre stack both look and feel plain and cheap, as do those on its steering wheel.
Reach out a hand for the chrome air vents high on the fascia and you will find flimsy, cheap-feeling fittings. Our test car had one or two unsecured fittings in the driver’s footwell, too, and some harsh, slightly sharp-edged plastic mouldings around its seat cushions. Besides failing to look and feel quite as special as you might expect of a high-end Italian luxury car, then, the Quattroporte also had some pretty clear quality problems.
