GRAND TOURING; Maserati's Spyder marches on in finest Italian GT form.

Byline: NATALIE NEFF

Stunning in its attention to design detail, the Maserati Spyder delights the senses with its pitch-perfect proportions and an interior so sinfully laden in leather that it's easy to imagine cows martyring themselves for such a cause. But as often as Italian cars are defined by their beauty, so, too, are they marked by a thoroughbred's temperament that simultaneously rewards and punishes-and steals your heart in the process. The Spyder lives up to this heritage more than any other of the breed today.

While the Maserati's engine bathes you in a glorious noise, intimating in operatic tones of its potential, managing that power can be more than taxing. The Cambiocorsa sequential manual is extraordinarily difficult to manage smoothly anywhere under full-song, but even at full-song it could be smoother. Below full revs (and boy does it rev, with horsepower peaking at 7000 rpm), it only allows for as-smooth-as-it's-going-to-get upshifts with the gas mashed to the floor or by precisely coordinating a slight lift with a pull of the shift paddle. And don't even think of throwing it in "auto'' mode, which shifts so roughly your head gets thrown forward and back with every shift-at any rpm.

We also found it difficult to park the Spyder, because even simply easing on the gas from idle causes the throttle blip. Delicate parking maneuvers become a herky-jerky affair. Maserati apparently updated the software for the '03 Cambiocorsa, but according to Maserati the car will get even more revisions for '04-including the addition of a "hillholder'' feature. The new model should start rolling into showrooms as you read this.

Even if you don't manage to get it to gallop smoothly, the Spyder does move out, its 390-horsepower 4.2-liter V8 getting up to speed quicker than it feels. You won't necessarily smoke the rears right off the line, but triple digits pop up on the speedo before you realize. Maserati claims a 0-to-60-mph time of 4.9 seconds and a top speed of 176 mph, and we have no reason to doubt those numbers.