Maserati->ke51 has been furiously working on a facelifted version of the Quattroporte->ke336 for many months now, and finally the first genuine driving footage has been released when the car was recently snapped cruising the streets near and around the Nurburgring.

As the 2014 Quattroporte isn’t set for a release until 2013, very little details have been released about the car. However, enough have been rumored to the point where they’re beginning to sound very convincing.

First off, reports suggest that the Quattroporte will ride on a brand new platform predominantly implemented to save a few pounds, while also enhancing comfort, control, and rigidity. Furthermore, the new Quattroporte is rumored to be offered with both all-wheel drive and front-wheel drive layouts, and the latter has left us scratching our heads a bit.

Sure, Quattroporte may mean ‘four doors’ rather than ‘four-wheel drive’, but we’re very surprised a front-wheel drive version will be offered rather than a rear-wheel drive layout. After all, the Quattroporte’s biggest competitor the BMW M5 is RWD, and there’s no questioning the success of that car. Furthermore, the Porsche Panamera->ke1840 is also offered in RWD and AWD.

Nevertheless, the 2014 Quattroporte is shaping up to be a suitable facelift for the dated car, and with the car set to retain a big 4.7-liter V8 engine, 470HP is on the cards and this could easily be increased for sport variants further down the track.

The aforementioned video does depict a very nice engine and exhaust note, but don’t expect any rapid changes in the styling department, as Maserati will likely only add or remove a handful of exterior and interior components.

.