I should be telling you how **** the MC Shift is as I think I am also after Lavazza's car and I am also London based.
However, I was very impressed with the MC Shift from my 20 miles drive on Friday in a London based car, which included crawiling along the A1M, some spirited B-roads and some town driving. I find it better in Auto mode than my SMG-ed M3, which has been set up to a tee, with CSL software. In full attack mode, the SMG is marginally quicker and more brutal, but I don't think the Maserati's brief was to tear around the Nurburgring.
All in, the MC Shift is a great piece of kit, provided it's set up properly and you drive it as a manual car, without expecting it to be PDK/DKG/DCT.