Maserati Levante vs Jaguar F-Pace
Jaguar F-Pace £51,450
Maserati Levante £54,335
WE SAY: JUMBO MASERATI TAKES ON MORE PETITE JAG FOR SUV SUPREMACY
Odd, isn’t it, that we live in an age where manufacturers responsible for several of the most seductive sports cars of the last century, and heroic feats on the racetrack, are staking their future solvency on high-riding, familyorientated, diesel-drinking SUVs. Nowadays, it seems, if a brand has allure we care little about where that magnetism stems from, so long as we can have a slice of it for ourselves: sewn into a leather jacket, slapped across a theme park, or glued to the posterior of a pseudo of-roader. Which is how I fnd myself in the chocolate-box Cotswold town of Burford, adjudicating a bout between Jaguar and Maserati, but rather than upsetting the locals with our pulsating exhaust notes, we’re blending in to perfection.
First some housekeeping, because the Porsche Cayenne might seem like the closer rival to the Maserati Levante in terms of size, but we’ve brought along an F-Pace instead. That’s because while the Cayenne remains the dynamic benchmark in this class, we already know from driving the Levante in Italy earlier this year that it’s closer in philosophy and feel to the softer, more easy-going Jag.
The Levante is 270mm longer, a few mm wider and taller, and weighs a not-insignifcant 321kg more. However, the Jaguar’s 650-litre boot is 70 litres larger and sitting in the back of both, headroom and legroom feel virtually identical. Where the Levante squanders its extra dimensions, we’re not quite sure. Both have eight-speed autos, with paddles if the mood takes you, and 3.0-litre V6 turbodiesels – the Levante with 271bhp, 0–62mph in 6.9 seconds and a claimed 39.2mpg, while the Jag counters with a sprightlier 296bhp, 0–62mph in 6.2 seconds and 47.1mpg.
It’s the Levante that steals the eye of more strangers, though. In fact, on its arrival at the TG ofce car park the frisson of excitement was enough for several members of staf to head down and take a look – you don’t get that, um, ever for a diesel SUV. Brandishing a jumbo trident badge, the grille is large and deep enough to imprison small children behind it, but somehow works on a car this size. Slim headlights and well-ironed creases in the bonnet are neat, too, but then from the A-pillar backwards the design team go for a double-espresso break, leaving just a fat expanse of grey metal before a fick over the rear wheelarch and a fairly uneventful rear end. And despite our test car wearing 20-inchers (a £1,960 option), the wheels are swallowed by the arches. Seriously, look at the picture below – it looks like one of those silly fold-up bikes. If you can stretch to it without draining the kids’ university fund – there are 21s on the options list, yours for £3,675.
Parked nose-to-nose, the F-Pace is so much more satisfying to take in. It might lack the Levante’s jewellery, like those side gills and a quartet of gaping exhausts, but you can’t argue with perfect proportions… and 22in wheels. I know that some members of the TG team will blow a gasket when I recommend these full-size rims, for the detrimental efect they have on the ride, but for me they’re important if you want to do the design justice. As for the ride compromise, yes, the Jag has noticeably sharper rebounds than the Maserati on actual cracks and holes in the road, but everywhere else it’s just as smooth.
Straight away you can sense the Levante’s more generous waistline, especially on the slimline roads surrounding these ancient English villages. The edges just feel further away, the bonnet longer. On the plus side, you can crank the seat right down, and pretend you’re in a “proper” Maserati, while still maintaining a lofty perspective on the world outside.
Throw it at a corner, and there are glimmers of Maserati DNA: at the point where you think it’s about to fall over, it sorts itself out, checks the body roll and powers out the other side. There is, though, a most un-Maserati-like delay between moving the wheel and the front end reacting, a reminder that your centre of gravity is somewhere north of anything that has carried the trident logo in the past.
The F-Pace’s handling is equally as unrufed, it simply turns and goes and sticks and fows down the road very nicely
“The grille is deep enough to imprison children behind it”
indeed, no histrionics, no whifs of oversteer to report, just dependable reactions. And when you’re perched a little further above the tarmac, that’s precisely what you’re after. Because of the way the F-Pace’s steering loads up gradually in fast corners, and the way its tighter footprint gives you more confdence to attack, it edges the Levante for fun. But that’s not to say Maserati hasn’t done an admirable job of keeping physics at bay.
In other parts of the world you can get the Levante with a more potent and much frutier-sounding twin-turbo V6 petrol, but here in the UK it’s a diesel or nothing. And you can hardly blame them when 95 per cent of UK sales among the Levante’s competitors are of the diesel variety. As power deliveries go, though, this is not one full of Italian brio. Whereas a BMW X5 40d, for example, has some genuine zip to it, the Maserati’s engine runs out of puf after just a few thousand rpm.
Leave the 8spd auto to pick the ratio, though, select Sport mode (hit the button once for a sharper throttle, heavier steering and sportier shifts or twice for all of the above plus a frmer damper setting – something I rarely felt the need for) and the thrusting, bite-size chunks of acceleration, accompanied by a subtle but not too synthetic rumble through the speakers, perfect for hurling you down the road and at an unseemly pace. The engine is smooth, too, just not frst thing on a cold morning when it rattles away like Dot Cotton after a heavy night on the B&H.
A power and weight advantage for the Jag mean its reactions are inevitably a bit sharper, but even if the weights were equal its engine would pick up quicker and pull harder. You can have a 2.0-litre 4cyl diesel in the Jag, too, which is what your feet manager wants, but if you can stretch to two more cylinders, you’ll never regret it.
Where you won’t want to take your bigrimmed Jag is anywhere gnarlier than a moist patch of grass. The Maserati on the other hand could be perfect for all those image-conscious farmers out there. Air suspension comes as standard and from the highest Of-Road 2 mode (up to 20mph), through to the aero modes where it hunkers down at higher speed, all the way down to the Park setting, there’s a total of six ride heights and 85mm of adjustable travel in the air springs. The ride is a bit fdgety over the worst surfaces, but nothing serious enough to put us of, and when the roads and speeds improve it foats along as gloriously and quietly as you’d expect. The boot is a bit
shallow, in order to accommodate the 4x4 gubbins underneath, hence the slight defcit to the F-Pace, but that’s before you’ve fopped the rear seats forward, checking that you’ve removed your children frst, unlocking a vast expanse of grey carpet – plenty for the annual Ikea run. Legroom and headroom in the back is perfectly adequate for three adults, and there’s a pair of USB sockets (ditto in the Jag) to keep your arsenal of electronics charged up. In other words, all the boring boxes are ticked.
But this is a Maserati and its cabin needs to deliver a sense of occasion, not just function. In that respect it succeeds, without ever feeling quite as premium as its German competitors. Many cows have died (and then been dyed) to line your Levante, the long metal paddles are a tactile delight – good enough not to feel out of place in a Ferrari – and Maserati’s new Apple CarPlay-equipped infotainment system is a bit bland graphically, but works perfectly well. The glossy carbon trim isn’t to our taste, there are a few cheaper plastics around the central screen and the gear selector is difcult to select the slot you want, but overall the ratio of Italian fair to everyday usability is well managed.
The Jag’s interior uses a marginally higher grade of materials and feels more solid throughout, but my God is it dull to look at. Especially with this mid-spec infotainment system rather than the IMAX widescreen InControl Touch Pro set-up (why oh why isn’t this standard?). Fortunately our test car was sprinkled with blood-red hide to break up the sea of black, and I can partly forgive it for simply lifting the XE and XF interior and plonking it in, because having run an XE for a year it’s instantly familiar, and easy to use.
Tough one to call this, because although the Levante doesn’t trip up in any one particular area, it doesn’t outshine the Jag or any of its other competitors for that matter, either. Besides that illustrious badge. Sure, it’s more sensible than any Maserati that’s gone before, but it’s still a car you’ll need to adjust the head/heart levels slightly to justify. A points victory for the Jaguar, then, rather than the knockout blow you might have expected.
“The Maserati is perfect for image-conscious farmers”