BMW 4 Series vs Maserati Ghibli

What's the difference?

Without a whole lot of fanfare BMW has slipped yet another model into its Australian line-up.

Sitting alongside existing coupe and convertible variants, the new 4 Series Gran Coupe follows the template established by the previous gen version. 

A sports luxury four-door with a sleek, fastback twist, it provides a more adventurous alternative to its close 3 Series cousin. 

Offered in three grades, this is the M440i xDrive, the 3.0-litre, six-cylinder, all-wheel drive 4 Series Gran Coupe flagship. 

It competes with premium all-wheel drive four-doors like Audi’s S5 Sportback, the Jaguar XF P300 R-Dynamic HSE, and the Mercedes-AMG C 43.  

Maseratis make a certain amount of sense to a certain kind of person. As the folks who run the brand in Australia will tell you, its buyers are the kind of people who’ve driven German premium vehicles, but find themselves wanting something more. 

They are older, wiser and, most importantly, richer. 

While it’s easy to see the high-end lure of Maserati’s Italian sex appeal styling and luxuriously appointed interiors, they’ve always struck me as cruisers rather than bruisers. 

Again, they’re for the older, more generously padded buyer, which makes the Trofeo range something of an oddity. Maserati says its Trofeo badge - seen here on its mid-sized sedan, the Ghibli, which sits below the vast Quattroporte limousine (and side on to the other car in the range, the SUV Levante) - is all about the "Art of Fast". 

And it certainly is fast, with a whopping V8 driving the rear wheels. It’s also completely bonkers, a luxury car with the heart of a track-chomping monster. 

Which is why Maserati chose to launch it at the Sydney Motorsport Park complex, where we could see just how quick and crazy it is. 

The big question is, why? And perhaps who, because it’s hard to imagine who wants, or needs, a car with such severe schizophrenia.