Wind of Change

Levante is a Mediterranean breeze – we test Maserati’s first-ever SUV in UK-spec right-hand drive form to find out if it’s a breath of fresh air 

- Chris Rees

Atrattore di Chelsea with Maserati badging – are you serious? Maserati makes sports cars and luxury saloons, not school-run chariots. A Maserati-badged SUV is a simple act of heresy… isn’t it?

No. If you think Maserati should never in a million years be building a titanic 4x4, you’re very much in the minority. Half of all luxury car sales are now taken up by SUVs. The bottom line is: if your brand isn’t offering one, you’re merely a bit-part actor on the luxury stage. Just look at the roster of who’s currently selling an SUV or has one in development: Jaguar, Bentley, Rolls Royce, Porsche, Lamborghini – even Lotus. The only high-end manufacturers to have ruled themselves out of the SUV market are hardcore supercar brands like Ferrari and McLaren.

No, the surprise with the new Levante 4x4 is not that Maserati now has an SUV in its line-up – it’s that it’s taken the company so long. A full 13 years have passed since Giugiaro first showed the Maserati Kubang SUV concept, and it’s five years after HQ’s own first stab at an SUV concept design (also named Kubang). The Levante has finally landed in UK showrooms, with deliveries starting in early 2017.

Design-wise, my first impressions are good. The shape is a strong, bold one that relies on neither brashness nor gimmickry. The front end takes its inspiration from Maserati’s Alfieri concept car (due to replace the GranTurismo in 2018/2019, by the way). At the back end, the Levante’s roofline echoes that of the Ghibli, while the coupe-like looks genuinely hide this car’s bulk well. Ah yes, bulk: there’s no escaping the fact that this is very much a full-size SUV: it measures over five metres long (more than any other rival) and weighs over 2.2 tonnes. On the flipside, it has the slipperiest shape of any large SUV, with a Cd of 0.31 (the next best, the BMW X5, has 0.35).