Maserati Grecale Trofeo review: Looking at a luxury SUV? This is as big as you should go
There’s a Goldilocks touch to the size of the Maserati Grecale. To buy one would be to take a chance on Italian engineering, but it’s worth the risk.
I don’t think I’m alone in expecting to be miraculously moved by Italian things – my family and I lived in Bologna for six months a few years ago, only partly so I could be closer to the Ferrari factory, and we wept openly and often over the food and the churches – but I must admit I don’t get quite as excited about Maseratis as some other hallowed brands.
The new Maserati Grecale, however, is causing quite a stir locally, despite being a mid-sized SUV, and I could quickly see what all the fuss was about when the range-topping, fire-breathing Trofeo version I’d borrowed started inventing its own speed limits. This is a very Italian thing to do – people there treat speed limits the way they do most rules and regulations, with a healthily haughty disdain – so I was quite amused by it at first.
Many new cars have systems that can read speed signs, and combine that information with navigation data to advise you what the speed limit is wherever you happen to be. Go over that and the displayed number will flash ominously at you. In the case of the Grecale this happens both on the dash and in the head-up display, so you really can’t miss the fact that you’re going over the limit, which, in a car that borrows its supercar-spec V6 engine from a proper Maserati, the lovely MC20, is going to happen a lot.
My particular Grecale, however, immediately began to warn me that I was in a 27km/h zone. Then, as I passed an 80km/h sign, it decided I was in a 38km/h zone. The Maserati’s melting mind continued to make up new and previously unimagined speed limits, but the amusement quickly wore thin because all of them were low and odd numbers.
It would have been more helpfully Italian if the Grecale had agreed with me, and its country of origin, and advised that all our silly slow 110km/h zones be upped to 130km/h.
Certainly the taut Trofeo version I was in showed a deep love for being driven at pace, particularly once you flicked the switch from its cruisy GT mode – in which its exhaust note sounds like a smoker who’s just smashed a shot of diesel – through Sport (cue a sudden deepening of tone, like hearing a car instantaneously hitting puberty) and into Corsa (or Race) mode, which prompts the Grecale to sound like its rear pipes have been stuffed full of grenades. To be honest, it’s so stupidly loud in the Corsa setting that it’s almost embarrassing to use for too long – even though engine noise has always been one of Maserati’s best features – but it also makes the Grecale fabulous to drive. An already very sporty feeling SUV suddenly lowers itself to the ground, beefs up its steering and accelerates like a proper Italian car (zero to 100km/h takes just 3.8 seconds).
The Grecale’s body control is excellent, the feedback to the driver is brilliant and involving, and there’s a Goldilocks touch to its size, particularly compared to the overly large Levante it sits beneath in the Maserati range. If you really must have an SUV, this is as big as you should go.
You can still get most of this fun and frivolity in Sport mode, of course, and the suggestion that anything this big really needs a special mode for the track still amuses me, like the idea of a couch with a racing harness.
To properly engage with your Grecale it’s vital to use the large and very Ferrari-like metal shift paddles on the steering wheel, although I did notice over the course of a week that they are so big they actually get in the way of things you’ll use more often, like indicators and wipers.
As you’d expect, the interior is wonderfully lush and smells like the kind of handbag my wife wishes I would buy her, with lots of lovely red leather slathered everywhere. There are also touches of the kind of slightly rough carbon fibre that feels pleasantly real to the touch (and there’s a nice bit just under the car’s nose, too, like a Zorro moustache).
The Grecale also looks properly Maserati on the outside with lots of shapely sculpting, so I can see why buyers are snapping this car up in Australia in unprecedented numbers. Not only is it the fastest selling vehicle the company has ever offered here, a whopping 80 per cent of orders are coming from customers who are new to the marque.
A starting price of $109,500 for such a storied brand no doubt helps, although the Trofeo model is a more premium $165,000 (entry-level models make do with a 2.0-litre four-cylinder engine, which sounds puny compared to the 3.0-litre V6 in the Trofeo, with its 390kW and 620Nm). To buy one would be to take a chance on Italian engineering and the kind of quirky behaviour my Grecale exhibited, but on balance I reckon it would be worth the risk. You just need to believe in Maserati miracles.
Maserati Grecale Trofeo
ENGINE: 3.0-litre twin-turbocharged V6 (390kW/620Nm)
FUEL ECONOMY: 11.2 litres per 100km
TRANSMISSION: 8-speed automatic, all-wheel drive
PRICE: $165,000
RATING: 4 out of 5
