MASERATI MC20
Maserati’s comeback trail is full of twists and turns – perfect for testing the new MC20
We pack our bags and head to Italy to try out Maserati’s new 621bhp supercar – does it fizz like a Ferrari?
WWe’re on the Passo della Raticosa. For 300 years this was the main road connecting Florence and Bologna, two of the world’s finest cities. It’s 968 metres above sea level, rising and falling, ebbing and flowing, not replete with fast sweepers or good sight lines but a lot of fun all the same. C’mon, this is Italy in full effect. It’s easy to imagine a nuova Fiat 500 fizzing and parping its way breathlessly between villages, or the gladiators of the original Mille Miglia pushing as hard they dare on the mountain hairpins. There’s not much that can save you if the brake pedal goes soft up here.
As it happens, the 2021 edition of the Mille Miglia will be passing through in 24 hours, but having done the event a fair few times it’s a relief not to be getting in the way of 400-odd hard-charging historics in a brand new Maserati MC20. Trust me, idiotic interlopers in modern tackle are the bane of the modern Mille Miglia.
The MC20 is part of that grand history but for once the new takes dramatic precedence over the old. It’s a halo product for sure, but also a significant statement of intent, and it signals Maserati’s stubborn refusal to become a footnote in the automotive annals. Cynics suggest that Maserati should be quietly pensioned off so we can enjoy the likes of the original Ghibli, Khamsin and my personal favourite, the Allemano-bodied 5000 GT, in rose-tinted peace. The MC20 insists otherwise.
Historically, Maserati was more of a grand touring concern and has a greater fealty to the eternally romantic if outmoded concept of trans-European road travel. The MC20 certainly elicits a more fizzy response than the meanly cushioned middle seat of a Ryanair plane and the moronic promise of some scratch cards. Do we need to talk about how it looks? Not everyone was wowed when the wraps came off last year, but what does a supercar have to do to catch a break these days? The snouty, pouty nose is pure Maserati, the cockpit has a concepty domed effect, and the trident motif air intakes on the Lexan rear window are fun and functional. There’s MC12 and Birdcage 75th concept in there, but if ever a mid-engined Italian supercar could qualify as subtle it’s probably this one. There’s something classically tailored about it, which might defeat shouty social media types in UAE condos but doesn’t bother me. Our car is finished in marble-effect Bianco Audace, though Blu Infinito or Grigio Misterio work equally well. (I’m fairly certain that there is no word in Italian for beige.)
There’s nothing beige about how the MC20 goes but it’s also not what you might expect. That subtlety, it turns out, is more than skin deep. We pick it up from Maserati’s headquarters in central Modena, home to the shiny new production line on which the car will be manufactured, and ease out into typically sticky and anarchic Italian traffic. Roundabout etiquette is non-existent in this country, and it’s baking hot even for this part of the world in late June. So forgive the workaday first impressions: the MC20 is easy to see out of and its air conditioning is capable of blowing at chilled hurricane force. There are no physical controls for it unfortunately, but the central touchscreen is mercifully simple to use.
Boy, does this thing ride well. Getting onto the autostrada from Modena is a fiddly process, and post-lockdown Italy is busy as hell. There’s a lot of freight traffic and this thundering army of big rigs has played havoc with the road surfaces. Some of these potholes
“THE DRIVING POSITION IS TERRIFIC, THE FRONT WINGS RISING SENSUALLY INTO YOUR EYELINE”
have got their own potholes, and the tarmac ripples and undulates as unpredictably as the Italian political system. But the MC20 just glides over the mayhem. Extruded aluminium subframes are attached to the tub, while the suspension itself is a sophisticated multi-link set-up at the front and rear. It’s made of forged alloy, with two links at the bottom and one on top; it’s the other way round at the rear. It works.
The drive south into Tuscany involves one of the world’s most scenic motorways, punctuated by long stretches of tunnel. These are majestic examples of engineering taken totally for granted by the locals but that we simply don’t have much of in the UK. These days, we’re better at debating infrastructure than actually building it. The MC20 feels stiff yet supple, and settles into an eighth gear cruise of startling serenity. Its carbon fibre chassis has been co-developed with race car specialist Dallara, which employed slightly different strategies for the three models that’ll be spun off this platform: the coupe, a spider, and the pure-electric version. Like McLaren but unlike Ferrari, which reserves carbon composites for its gazillion pound hypercars, Maserati has gone the carbon fibre route for the MC20 for maximum structural integrity and reduced (if not notably minimal) weight.
Maserati says the top half is more design oriented, and the lower half is where aerodynamics have primacy. Highlights include vortex generators at the front, a hump in the floor which rises in the middle to feed air to them before reconnecting with the chassis further along, and door sill ducts to aid airflow to the engine compartment. And it was all done lightning fast: the MC20 was developed in a little over two years using an arsenal of simulation tools in Maserati’s innovation lab. Oh, and the company says that 97 per cent of the car’s development was done virtually.
“THE MC20 FEELS STIFF YET SUPPLE, AND SETTLES INTO A CRUISE OF STARTLING SERENITY”