by CarBook
The Grecale is Maserati’s mid-sized, luxury SUV that sits below the larger Levante. Think Porsche Macan, Alfa Romeo Stelvio – that sort of thing. A ‘global’ car that’s designed to work in lots of different markets without significant re-engineering-slash-tweaking, based around the ‘everyday exceptional’ tagline. The basics are that it’s a five-seat SUV (based on a stretched common ‘Georgio’ platform) with class-leading space and lots of interesting colours. The intention here is what Maserati refers to as ‘visual longevity’ – the idea that if you produce something that follows current trends too closely, you end up falling out of fashion equally quickly – but what you get is a car that might well fail to grab enough attention in the first place.
It’s beginning to feel like the world has forgotten how to make anything but SUVs these days, but Maserati – even by its own admission – is actually fairly late to the game with this one; the Grecale is a mid-sized, luxury SUV
The basics are that it’s a five-seat SUV (based on a stretched common ‘Georgio’ platform) with class-leading space, slightly confusing styling and lots of interesting colours. The intention here is what Maserati refers to as ‘visual longevity’ – the idea that if you produce something that follows current trends too closely, you end up falling out of fashion equally quickly – but what you get is a car that might well fail to grab enough attention in the first place.
Maserati has a long and storied history of making cars that are different. Quietly so, but there’s no mistaking it. The Grecale is a bit of a mish-mash, to be honest. On first – and brief – appraisal, the Trofeo (which we’d individually score a 7/10) has much more Maserati character, but the four-cylinder cars are likely to be the big global sellers, and they lack the quirk and nuance that is such a big part of whatever it is that marks out a Maserati.
The early versions we drove also felt like they had a few tweaks still to come, especially in the suspension department. But the fact remains that a Maserati has always been something quietly different, and the Grecale hits most of the technical ambition without particularly grabbing the emotional—which is fine if you’re more interested in numbers than personality.
