The want-one factor

SO, tombstoning. It's the latest craze and what you do is simple. You go to the seaside, climb the tallest cliff and, without bothering to check the depth of the water, hurl yourself into the unknown.

The Maserati Quattroporte Executive GT

SO, tombstoning. It's the latest craze and what you do is simple. You go to the seaside, climb the tallest cliff and, without bothering to check the depth of the water, hurl yourself into the unknown.

Then you go home in an ambulance and spend the rest of your life in a wheelchair, dribbling.

I suppose one reason why people do this is because they have been brought up in a world with no danger. They have not been allowed to play conkers or climb trees, so everything they have ever experienced is safe and comfy. It stands to reason, then, that jumping off Beachy Head into two feet of water will be safe and comfy too.

The other reason is that the participants are young. And young people like discomfort, speed and adrenaline so much they are prepared to risk a lifetime of head wands and mashed food to get it.

Older people are the exact opposite. They like wingback chairs and being warm. What I crave in my middle age is an empty diary. Page after page of nothing.

Sometimes these days I get up and spend all day counting the minutes until I can go back to bed again. Sleeping is now my absolute favourite hobby.

I still like going quickly, of course, but only if I can sit down. It's why I have no interest in making a parachute jump. You have to get off your seat and hurl yourself out of the door. That's too much effort, especially as you could achieve much the same sensation by driving to work with your head out of the sunshine roof.

Then there's white-water rafting. Why would I want to do that? All that huffing and puffing. I'd rather eat a bar of Cadbury's Fruit & Nut chocolate.

And what really annoys me is that car-makers just don't seem to have cottoned on, which means that just about every single expensive and desirable car on the market today is aimed at people who go tombstoning. And not people who sit in chairs all day dreaming of sleep and eating chocolate.

When a rich person -- someone who could afford a Ferrari or Lamborghini -- is asked by an airline where he'd like to sit, he will say in first class where the seats are sumptuous and the wine is fine. He will not say, "Ooh, is there any chance that you could spread-eagle me across the jet intake?"

I should make it plain at this point that I still like fast cars. I like them to telegraph their intentions through the fabric of my underpants. I like them to be crisp and responsive and loud and powerful. But I am unusual.

Most people are typified by my elderly friend Brian. He rarely exceeds 30mph. He is baffled by gearboxes. He often forgets what the steering wheel does. And as a result there is no pillar, post, pylon, hedge or low wall in all of south-east England that he hasn't scraped, hit or backed into.

If Brian were a benefit cheat or a shelf stacker all would be well. He could buy an automatic Kia Rio and trundle about at 6mph, delirious with joy.

But unfortunately Brian runs a successful business and is therefore in a position to spend a lot on his cars. Which he does. And he hates every single one of them.

Since I've known him he's had two Aston Martins, two supercharged Jaguars, a Porsche 911, a Ferrari 360 (which he really, really hated), and a Maserati. As I write he's waiting for the new Maserati coupe and I feel fairly sure he'll dislike it as well.

There's a good reason for this. All these cars ride harshly and make a lot of noise. They are designed for speed and handling and thrustiness. Things that Brian doesn't want. Things that few people want once they're past 50. And let's be honest, you have to be past 50, really, to insure cars like this.

Of course, there are exceptions. The Rolls-Royce Phantom, for example, but it costs 250,000 pounds and by the time you have that kind of money to spend on a car you'd be 7000 years old.

Then there's the Bentley Continental. It is fast. It is expensive. And, unusually, it is comfortable as well. But that's because, underneath, it's a Volkswagen Phaeton.

The Lamborghini Gallardo -- not a lot of people know this -- is available from the factory with a choice of three suspension settings. Sport. Normal. And Comfort. But I bet it isn't comfortable at all. I bet it's a relative thing: like having your head put in a vice is more comfortable than being shot in the back of the knee.

So if you want to spend a lot of money on a comfortable car that isn't a Volkswagen Phaeton in a Bento-frock, what about the new Maserati Quattroporte automatic?

Its lovely V8 engine is not squeezed to hand over as much power as possible. Without really trying it serves up 400bhp and that's plenty.

And inside there's no carbon fibre creaking noisily against magnesium struts. It's leather and wood and opulence. It's exactly the sort of place an older chap might want to sit after a hard day in a chair.

Unfortunately, when it first came along the Quattroporte was only available with a stupid flappy paddle gearbox. The worst, most dimwitted paddle shifter ever made. And as a result the older generation, the people with the money to buy such a thing, said no thanks and bought a Mercedes instead.

You might think it'd be easy, replacing the manual with an auto. But no. The manual was fitted at the back of the car for better weight distribution but the auto is up at the front, bolted to the back of the engine. That meant redesigning the whole floor, the rear suspension, and even the engine itself. It now has a wet sump.

But it was worth the effort, because now you sink into your Quattroporte, fire up the lazy V8 with a key -- you're not expected to push a stupid starter button like you do in most expensive cars these days. And then you go home. Quietly and with no need to change gear. It all sounds too wonderful for words.

And it gets better, because this car has such dignity. There's a very real sense that no footballer would buy a Quattroporte. It is a dashing car for people who think the only thing in the world that's worse than a fake Rolex is a real one. It really does have a sky-high want-one factor. And now it comes in a package that's no harder to operate than a toaster.

And oh, how I wish I could stop there. But I'm afraid there are some problems. Some, like the unfathomable sat nav, the broken air-conditioning and the scattergun switch arrangement are small, and you could get used to them. One, however, is big. The way it drives.

It is absolutely horrible. It fidgets whenever the road surface is anything other than millpond smooth, it crashes over bumps and it hunts camber so violently that once it flicked onto the wrong side of the road.

Weirdly, I did not notice this when I drove a manual Quattroporte and I can only presume that by removing the tube that connected the gearbox to the engine they've removed some of the car's rigidity. Either that or the tyres are made from plywood. Whatever. They have removed one big problem and created another, even bigger one.

I wanted desperately to like this car. I even hung on to it for an extra day to see if my mind would change.

But I could not live with the problems. Not in a car that sheds value like it's sitting in a bath of acid. And so if you are an old man who likes being comfortable, there is still no expensive car that fits the bill.

The only solution, then, is to buy a Ford Mondeo and fit mink seats.