I am guilty of it. I say it not with pride, but as a perfectly sensible and objective statement: My first thought when seeing that the new Maserati GranTurismo was exactly the one of someone who has been into cars for a considerable part of their life.
“Imagine an Italian car where all of it is the electrics.”
The new GranTurismo is a really weird blend of old and new. Looking at it you wouldn’t think that it’s that much different from the model it replaces. An especially thorough facelift, surely. I didn’t especially like the old GranTurismo. Mostly because I remember the even older Maserati 3200/4200 GT’s, which is the better looking vehicle by a mile, boomerang taillights or not. But no, it’s actually a completely different platform and a completely new paradigm for the brand.
Goodbye delectably sonorous Ferrari V8, hello brand new in-house Nettuno V6. And step aside from the spotlight Nettuno V6, because the big news on this one is the BEV version. 750 Horsepower from a Tri-Motor array. In-house battery design, 250+ mile range. It’s going to be amazing.
If it works.
Yes, the stereotype of Italian vehicles serving mostly as really beautiful and expensive lawn ornaments. Not to mention providing the owners with the exciting opportunity of overpaying for a long-term rental of whatever the dealership uses as a loaner. Their reputation is likely not helped by Maserati owners being more likely to report the tiniest niggle on their car as something horrible while a Toyota owner would ignore a door falling off because “It’s a Toyota, it has to be reliable”. And then auto journalists perennially go right ahead and use the following structure for their reviews.
Old [brand]models used to feel terrible. you got the sense that [brand] cares as much about the end product as [simile]. But sitting here in [interior description] you get the sense that [brand] has really done an effort to build things properly this time.
And I’m sure that’s how it feels as they drive the press ringers on the curated road course that the brand selected in between boring presentations and the after-drive dinner in a picturesque little villa with only the finest that the expense account can manage. And then come next gen it’s this model that feels terrible and whose trim fell off is you as much thought about a bump while driving it.
The new GranTurismo isn’t in any of those phases quite yet. it’s on the “oogle at it and adore the way it looks” one, which is great. Because digitally, as bytes that move pixels that transmit data into eyeballs, it’s probably the best vehicle that Maserati has done in a while. Yes, better than the mid-engined supercar and certainly better than the compensator crossovers. I just hope that once it stops becoming that and people with a quarter of a million or so to drop on a new EV start getting their orders, they find that this time, they didn’t just end up on a roundabout way to pay an order of magnitude more for a Fiat 500L
