A Maserati GranSport For The Price Of A New Hot Hatch? Where Do We Sign?

Having a Maserati GranSport in your driveway in the 2000s meant that you were doing very well indeed. The Italian GT that preceded the GranTurismo was a very desirable supercar with a delicious Ferrari-sourced V8 up front, rear-wheel drive and room for four, all wrapped up in a sexy coupe body style.

If you still have a thing for the GranSport, then this is a very good time to get one, as depreciation has left its mark on it. The right-hand drive example pictured here was made in 2006, has one owner from new and only 25,432 miles (40,929 km) on the clock. The mileage can be verified by the service book, which shows four entries in total, with the last one being performed by a Ferrari dealer.

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Despite its provenance, it won’t break the bank: SilverstoneAuctions estimates that it will sell for £24,000-£28,000 ($30,301-$35,351/€27,121-€31,642), plus a buyer’s premium of 15 percent, tax included, at the auction set to take place on July 28, at the Silverstone circuit, in the UK.

If the car meets the estimate, then that’s about the same as the new Renault Megane RS, which starts from just a little under £28,000 ($35,351/€31,642) in Britain. And, if we could handle the running costs, we know which one we’d rather have…

With a Grigio Alfieri exterior on top of the Nero leather interior, this GranSport uses a 4.2-liter V8 coupled to a six-speed,, single-clutch electrohydraulic transmission. The official specs are quite impressive, with 400 horsepower and 333 pound-feet (451 Nm) of torque, which translates to less than 5 seconds for the 0-62 mph (0-100 km/h) sprint and a 180 mph (290 km/h) top speed.

The auction house states that this is probably one of the best GranSports on sale today, and by looking at the images, we can’t help but agree. But is it enough to convince you to buy it and deal with the expensive maintenance (and some truly horrifying urban legends regarding reliability), or would you go for something less exotic, more modern and equally fast, or even faster, but without that unique Italian charm?