The Maserati Grecale is here to spoil the mid-sized luxury SUV party. Time to see if it can usurp the current ringleaders
WORDS PAUL HORRELL PHOTOGRAPHY MARK RICCIONI
Much as we love the emotional zap of Italian cars, we aren’t blind to a troubling fact. Fiat, Alfa and Maserati are all sadly prone to launching an all-new car that’s the equal of, but not significantly superior to, a German rival that’s been around for years. And because the Italians, unlike the Germans, are neglectful of updating their stuff, before long they fall well out of contention. Who’d have bought an Alfa Giulietta over a Golf by the time it died in 2020? Today’s Alfa Giulia is sagging behind the 3-Series. The Fiat 500 – petrol not electric – has been around for 15 years, or two near complete generations of VW Polo. And only last year, Maserati ended production of a Granturismo that had spanned the 997, 991 and 992 generations of Porsche 911.
If we hadn’t been thinking about that history, we’d assume the brand new Maserati Grecale would eat the nine-year-old Porsche Macan for lunch. Burp. This is the final year when the Macan is a frontline car for Porsche, as an electric one is coming soon. Mind you, as a hedge, the petrol Macan will
quietly continue for people who are disinclined and places that are unsuited to adopt battery drive. Talking of which, there will be a full electric, aka Folgore, version of the Grecale coming very soon.
Range Rover meanwhile is leaning into plug-in hybrids, and we brought along a Velar P400e. In unsurprising news, the Velar’s dash now has the big single touchscreen system from the more recent vehicles in LR’s oeuvre. Because of its dual powertrain, this Velar is up on weight versus its rivals here and feels it, but they all coincide neatly on price, and for a company car driver the PHEV system in the Velar lets it temptingly limbo down into a 12 per cent BIK rate. The others are 37 per cent. Having said that we won’t be banging on too much about matters of accountancy here, because if you’re ready to go electric for its own sake, or just to cut your tax, you’ve now got plenty of full EV choices of SUV.
What you haven’t got is estate choices. The BMW 5-Series and Mercedes E-Class are also absent, as they’re between generations. Audi no longer does an S6 Avant. Volvo has just pulled the rug from under all its wagons in Britain. So our usual advice when testing SUVs for road – ‘just get an estate instead’ – falls on it
