[pwd72s]

A theory of mine was proven yesterday. On our weekly Bullitt Mustang drive to our favorite pool hall, I merged onto I-5 North to find myself behind a Maserati Gran Turismo. This is not one of their hotter mid engine cars, rather a classy looking understated coupe. This one was in a dark silver gray color and was absolutely gorgeous. Low? Man, it couldn't have had more than 6" clearance from the road, yet I could see that it's suspension was working well at absorbing surface irregularities. Just a drop dead gorgeous car. Very subtle in it's beauty, I doubt that many of the non car aware around us had a clue what it was.

This is Maserati's "entry level" car, base price $132,835...but I'm sure most sell for $150K or more with a few options added. It runs a Ferrari built 4.7 V-8 boasting 434 horsepower, with an advertised top end of around 180. Not extremely fast by today's standards, but plenty fast for street and highway driving.

It's driver was good. Driving rapidly but not stupidly. Always aware. No tailgating, but moving out well to pass whenever slower traffic pulled over.

I followed at a respectable distance for about 30 miles....until my exit showed up.

My point being...the Maserati couldn't drive that stretch any faster than I could in a lowly cheap Mustang. Traffic simply wouldn't allow anything faster than we were cruising. Just as well, I suppose, since my V-1 told me we were both painted with radar at one point, and with Laser a few miles further on.

Dense population, crowded roads, onerous traffic laws...all now combine to make driving a pain in the ass instead of the pleasure it should be.

Oh well...it indeed was a pleasure to witness a fine automobile being driven well.