Flawed Levante still bella, bella
Maserati has now joined other high-brow marques in the SUV class with the new Levante. By Paul Owen.
Think of all the Italian driving stereotypes, and you’ll find that SUVs are generally missing from the images.
The dude who ripped off his rear-view mirror at the beginning of The Gumball Rally and declared ‘‘what’s behind me is not important’’ was at the wheel of a Ferrari rather than a Jeep. Fiat’s SUVs have so far mostly been Suzukis wearing the Turin carmaker’s badge.
About the only Latin SUV that’s managed to carve a place in the collective global automotive consciousness has been the Lamborghini LM002, made between 1986 and 1990. What made the ‘Rambo-Lambo’ so memorable was its popularity with monarchs like the Sultan of Brunei and the King of Morocco, and the fact that you could order it with a whopping 7.2-litre V12 engine lifted from an offshore racing powerboat.
Lamborghini has just put the successor to the LM002, the Uris, into production, and 2017 will see the debut of other new Latin SUVs from Alfa Romeo and Fiat.
Beating them all to the punch is the one you see here – the new Maserati Levante.
The Modena firm already had a head-start with the Levante. It’s essentially a Ghibli sedan that’s been raised, re-styled and reimagined into an SUV.
The effective but ultimately rough-edged V6 turbo-diesel engine under the Levante’s bonnet first made its debut powering the Quattroporte saloon five years ago. Maserati therefore had plenty of experience to call upon when calibrating this Jeep-sourced engine to the eight-speed automatic gearbox and new adaptive all-wheel-drive system of the Levante.
At $136,990 for the base version, or $155,990 when equipped with the optional Luxury or Sports packs, the Levante lands smack in the middle of pricing territory occupied by the Porsche Cayenne range here. This gives the high-rise Maserati its greatest challenge, for Porsche has had an even longer head-start in building its SUV with the Cayenne first making its debut back in 2003.
Several generations of evolution have seen the Porsche mature into a paragon of sophistication, and the eight-model range offers the choice of multiple powertrains where the Levante can currently offer just the one.
There are no petrol turbos or hybrids to widen the appeal of the Levante so any direct comparisons with the Cayenne are limited to the German marque’s diesel models. And the Cayenne diesel has the Levante licked when it comes to refinement. It doesn’t rattle, trucklike, at idle, gets into the thick of the torque earlier, and is more polite when cruising the open road.
It also uses less fuel, dropping the CO2 output from the Levante’s 189gm/km to 179 if you care about globe-warming gas outputs. Perhaps you care more about emissions of nitrous dioxide, and good on you because it inhibits the flow of blood to the human brain and is a major promoter of acid rain.
With its engine complying with the Euro 5 emission standard, the Levante produces 180mg/km of nitrous oxide, which then combines with oxygen in the air to form NO2. The Euro 6-compliant Porsche diesel can only emit 80mg/km of nitrous oxide according to rules.
Naturally, none of the above matters if you’re smitten with either the sensual looks of the Levante or the symbiotic bonding that occurs when you drive it. Some would argue that this is the finest looking luxo-SUV on the market and they’d get no dissent from me. It’s certainly one of the boldest with its gulping grille and shark-eyed headlights, and the way the C-pillar merges with the voluptuous ‘hip line’ above the rear wheels evokes memories of the full-bodied Latin beauties like Gina Lollobrigida, Claudia Cardinale and Sophia Loren who were the Saturday matinee idols of the 1960s.
The Levante also conforms to the Maserati play-book when you drive it. It’ll whizz round town in the comfort setting like any other SUV with only its sexy exterior design and Trident badge to identify it as a six-figure vehicle.
But get it out on the open road, select the ‘sport’ mode that lowers the air-suspended body by 20mm and adds a bit more weight to the hydraulically-assisted wheel, and you’re soon aware that this vehicle hails from a little low-volume outfit in Modena. It steers as accurately as any rail-guided vehicle, limiting the feedback through the wheel to essential bump encounter information, with stout stabiliser bars limiting the weight transfers, and the adaptive four-wheel torque distribution keeping the tyres in line.
It’s almost as good as the Porsche in this regard, if not quite its overlord.
You have to spend the extra 19-grand on either of the packs before the Levante feels truly Maserati-like inside. Otherwise the cabin will seem amazingly Jeep Grand Cherokee-like, albeit one with a better audio system and more supportive seats. Maserati expects 40 per cent of Kiwi buyers will buy the base model, and a further 40 per cent will opt for the Sports pack. Just 20 per cent will go for the luxury pack with its optional Zegna silk seat inserts.
Already more than 30 Kiwis have ordered a Levante, and Maserati expects it to eventually comprise 57 per cent of its sales here. It’s easy to see why. A little Latin flair added to the usual practicality and versatility of an SUV is always going to be a winning combo. Expect even more of that flair when the inevitable Ferrariengineered petrol V 6 turbocharged versions become available.