Published:
9 December 2016Given that it wears the same badge as Juan Manuel Fangio’s 250F Formula 1 car, the Levante is an SUV from which it seems reasonable to expect a bit of briskness.
Particularly so because all of its key rivals provide a convincing sense of muscular V6 shove – and it’s surely for the Levante to go one better than most.
Given the 6.8sec 0-60mph time we recorded, the Levante’s performance seems worthy enough in isolation – but when you check what an equivalent BMW X5, Range Rover Sport or Porsche Cayenne will do, it’s nothing special.
But the biggest problem here is that the Levante will only achieve this kind of pace when put under unseemly duress – when launching against the brakes and held stationary at almost full power.
Move away from rest in a slightly more dignified fashion (as every driver will) and you can expect the standard sprint to 60mph to take at least a second or two longer.
That may sound like a trifling concern, but it’s indicative of a wider one. When accelerating from any prevailing speed, the Levante won’t brush off its mass and pick up the pace with the sort of authority that has become a familiar, effortless feature of its rivals and really befits a luxury sporting car.
It’s because the single-turbo diesel engine is operating at a sizeable disadvantage on peak torque – worth as much as 70lb ft in some cases – compared with plenty of the cars against which it must be measured. And the result, not dissimilar to our experience of the Ghibli, is a more ponderous SUV than we might have expected to find wearing a Maserati badge.
