Car review: Maserati Levante Trofeo – better than a thousand orgasms
Sean O’Grady on the 580-horsepower beast that will transport you to 60 miles per hour and a heightened sense of reality in a couple of seconds
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Your support makes all the difference.So here’s a thing. What do you get if you shove a Ferrari engine into a two-ton SUV? An environmental disaster? A conspicuous symbol of the excesses of modern consumer society? Rather more car than you really need?
Yes, all of those things…but more. You also get something so well-engineered, so dramatically styled, so fast, so palpably powerful, so able on-road and off-road that you wonder how such a thrilling blend of abilities could be melded into one motor car. Yes, it’s nice to drive. Naughty but nice. The Levante Trofeo is a top of the range, luxurious, finely detailed, V8-powered supercar with five doors and it provokes lustful thoughts in some of us. It reminds me of what Renton says about drugs in Trainspotting: “People think it’s all about misery and desperation and death and all that s****, which is not to be ignored. But what they forget is the pleasure of it. Otherwise we wouldn’t do it. Take the best orgasm you ever had, multiply it by a thousand and you’re still nowhere near it.” I can confirm that the Levante Trofeo will have that effect on you, even if you feel a bit like a junkie for falling to it additive charms.
Maserati let a few of us loose on a track with this most potent of the Levante range – a 580-horsepower version that will transport you to 60 miles per hour and a heightened sense of reality in a couple of seconds. They did this for reason of safety, and in particular because there are features on the car that you can’t really use on a public road. Such as “launch control” – so called because the vehicle has so much power being pumped mainly into the rear wheels that it requires some computing help to make sure that you don’t end up upside down or leave most of your tyres on the road.
It involves pushing a couple of buttons, flipping the big paddle-shift gear lever times and then stamping both on the brake and the accelerator until the dash tells you to jump off the brake and there you go, launched – it is indeed the correct word – towards the horizon. On a one-mile straight you get as near as you nerves can take to 160mph, and it will in fact go on to take not far off 200mph. And to think you could do all this with your family, the dog and some smaller items of furniture in the back. Yes, it is a multitalented machine, even if many of the talents won’t ever be used by its drivers. They just like to know that it can go down a muddy 60 per cent gradient safely and then take off at the traffic lights like an F1 car.
The spec
Maserati Levante Trofeo
Price: £126,900 (as tested, range starts at £59,800)
Engine: 3.8 litre V8-cylinder petrol; 8-speed auto
Power output (hp@rpm): 580@6,250
Top speed (mph): 189
0 to 60 (secs): 3.8
Fuel economy (mpg): 13.2
CO2 emissions (g/km): 313
It is strong on detail. The Levante has been going for a few years now, and is, for a Maserati, a relatively common sight; they’ve sold 55,000 in the UK since they brought it here in 2016, many of them with a V6 diesel lugging them along – a perfectly fine car, and their entry-level SUV at about £50,000, but, like every manufacturer, they take their opportunities to freshen up and add interest to the range. Hence the additional V8 models and also the smaller changes to the Trofeo they’ve made to make it stand out a little more to the cognoscenti – lots of carbon fibre pieces along the front grille and dotted around the interior, as well as sumptuous soft leathers and exquisite craftsmanship throughout.
To thank you for the £125,000 or so the Trofeo will set you back, they fit a special version of the Trident badge, incorporating the “Trofeo” name (meaning racing trophy, obvs) to the rear pillar. The 22-inch alloy wheels, ludicrously big, don’t seem to have had too bad an impact either on its looks or its dynamic abilities, which are enhanced through a lower ride height and a few spoilers tacked around the bodyshell. The basic product – big “face” with a large Maserati trident, curvy sides and the off aggressive looking little fin – has ahead well, and looks better in truth than its near rivals the Range Rover Sport and the Porsche Cayenne. It is contemporary, and fairly conventional but also very elegant in it proportions.
In terms of driveability, a Levante is as good as a Bentley Bentayga, a little more insistent and less smooth maybe, but not quite as comfy a pad to move into.
The sorts of folk who are in the market for these cars approach them in one of two ways. Either they can opt to buy the lot if they fancy it and they can’t choose their favourite monster SUV; or they do so on the basis of taste. If you like a contemporary look you’d go Range Rover; cheesy, kitschy silliness s puts you behind the wheel of a Porsche; classic English pushes you to the Bentley; the Maserati offers something different again, a rare Italian alternative.
The Levante Trofeo is also exclusive, whether by design or not. It lacks some of the technical edge of its well-known rivals – AMG and M-Sport versions of the big Mercedes and BMW SUVs, such as air suspension. Hybrid technology or the very best driver assistance software – but does other things better. Best of all it is nowhere near such a common sight on the roads and, maybe as a consequence, the Levante has enjoyed better residuals than the German brands traditionally associated with low deprecation and second-hand desirability.
As Maserati’s first entrant into the fastest growing sector of the new car market, the highly fashionable SUV the Levante has done as well as it could form such a relatively minor player, and established the brand in a new market as a luxury car that is rare but, in some versions, comparatively affordable – a V6 Levante will start at £325 a month on finance. A new, smaller SUV Maserati arrives next year, along with a new hybrid coupe. Maserati is, so far, managing to balance its credentials as an exclusive premium make with the need to attract enough customers to stay in business at the prestige end of the Fiat Chrysler Auto group, which is rather the point of it all.
“Levante” according to Maserati is defined as: “A warm easterly wind that blows in the Mediterranean Sea causing heavy swells that can change from moderate to gale force strength in an instant”. Quite so, and it’s perfectly possible to drive a Levante as a grand cruiser – with a comfort setting that quietens the raucous urgency of that Ferrari-derived V8 engine, and makes you cross continental excursion that much more restful.
As a matter of fact, rather like the rest of the Maserati range, the Levante Trofeo is best suited to life as a classic grand tourer, with the same relaxed capabilities possessed Maserati’s GT coupe (now ending its long production run) and Quattroporte limousine, but with a better view of the scenery and the option of taking it round some otherwise inaccessible tracks and paths. A car to go exploring in, then, a car for everything, if not for everyman.
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