In typical Italian fashion, the 2005 Maserati Quattroporte comes one way, but with a wide range of optional features to personalize the car to your liking. There isn’t an entry-level model, or an up-level model. There’s one engine offering, with one transmission delivering power to the rear wheels. And thanks to bespoke tailoring through a wide range of colors, interiors, and options, the plethora of resulting variants virtually assures that every one of the 1,500 Quattroportes coming to North America is certainly one of a kind.

Our test car was covered with a gorgeous burgundy mica paint that appeared coated with Teflon, so shiny and luminescent was its finish. This is just one of numerous deep, classic colors offered as standard equipment, and with the Maserati Personalization Program you are literally offered four million color and interior material combinations.

When it comes to the interior, we wouldn’t mess with the fashion sensibilities of the designers at Maserati. Supple leather covers everything you touch, and what isn’t upholstered in leather is trimmed with the most exquisite woodwork we have seen in a modern motorcar. Our Quattroporte’s luscious mahogany wood trim was to die for, coating the center console and making it resemble a fine piece of furniture complete with jointed corners. Turning thin layers of wood into art is difficult for most, but not so for the craftsmen at Maserati.