Maserati GranTurismo 2017 Review

A decade ago, if you’d told me you were buying the Maserati GranTurismo, I’d have patted you on the back, transfixed in awe of your passion, your appreciation of leather craftsmanship and the unique combination of elegance and menace the things evoked.

But that was then. Now, almost everything lining up against the GranTurismo (Aston Martin apart) has two turbochargers and either straight six, V6 or V8 engines and they all muster more torque at idle than the Maserati manages atop the sharpish peak 4750rpm into its 7200rpm rev range.

Being not German is undoubtedly a major attraction in a market where people still want to stand out without appearing to try hard to stand out.

That’s perhaps why the GranTurismo’s late-life facelift is just a plastic tickle, new headlights in the old shells and an aero adjustment. You’ll look closely to see the Alfieri-inspired grille, the sharper nose and the cleaner rear look.

The MC is a bit more aggressive looking, with an air intake in the middle of the carbon-fibre bonnet and two hot-air outlets backing it up, plus its splitter is deeper and its rear wing is higher and it now creeps to 301km/h.

A better place to start looking might well be the interior, which is, as it always was, a place where art and craftsmanship meet. It’s a proper four-seater, rather than a 2+2, and you can fit adults in the rear seat for long trips without losing friends.

Maserati has pulled the 8.4-inch touch-screen infotainment unit out of the Levante, ripped out the unloved, slow old system and, presumably, the hidden steam engine that clearly powered it.

That new screen alone steps up its usefulness in daily life, as does the addition of Maserati’s two-tier rotary infotainment scroller, which feels a bit redundant given the touch-screen is more intuitive to use.

The sound system is now a stock Harmon Kardon unit and sumptuous leather surrounds everything, including a new design around the new screen.

Unfortunately, that leather can’t hide everything and, as it was a decade ago, the biggest interior shortcoming of the GranTurismo is the aging switchgear, which looks and feels clunky.

The flat-bottomed (and -topped) steering wheel hides some of the buttons on the left side of the dash, while the gear lever hides more, though pulling Drive finally reveals the skid-control button.

The ventilation system is a doddle to use and the car’s new infotainment unit talks cheerfully to both Apple and Android systems. But if you’ve come to Maserati for its smartphone compatibility, you’re really shopping in the wrong place.

You come here first for the engines, and it’s the Maserati powertrain department that’s been the most active in this facelift.

By “most active” we actually mean “most active with the red pen”.

It’s drawn lines through many things for the facelift, including using the twin-turbo V6 from the Ghibli, the twin-turbo V8 from the Quattroporte and even the 4.2-litre V8 that the GranTurismo had before.

It’s even ruled a line through the MC using the paddle-shift single-plate clutch six-speed transmission it used before.

So today’s full range of GranTurismos and GranCabrios runs to one single engine (a 338kW 4.7-litre naturally aspirated V8, entrusted to Maserati’s care by the Gods of Engines themselves) and one single transmission, a six-speed automatic.

Let’s stay on this topic for a bit, because it’s important. When Maserati launched the GranTurismo in 2007, its rivals from AMG were already running seven speeds. Now they’re at nine, or 50 per cent more than the GranTurismo. BMW’s M is at eight, as is Audi Sport.

Back then, the GranTurismo was already a bit short on driver-assistance systems, but in today’s world that list is the lightest part of the steel-bodied coupe. There’s no autonomous emergency braking, no active cruise control, no lane departure warning system, no automatic parking, no, well, anything much, so you’ll just have to stay alert.

The good news is that you’ll want to, lest you miss a single rpm change from the 90-degree V8. There are no turbochargers, no mild-hybrid systems and no cylinder deactivation to save fuel.

The Germans may counter that it’s not socially responsible (and, with 331g/km of CO2 on the combined cycle – at 14.3L/100km, they might have a point), but then Maserati wasn’t involved in Dieselgate, so swings and roundabouts.

Maserati learned long ago that it couldn’t run with Germany’s tech leaders, so it instead went on a charm offensive. It’s still on it, with more commitment to it than ever, and of every car-maker in the world, only Aston Martin goes all-in on the strategy like Maserati.

It uses an old-school key that enters and twists, it fires up with sheer venom, a sharp blip and a belligerent idle. From 2000rpm to 3500rpm, at a tickle of throttle or half throttle or a full stomp, the V8 digs deep down into its soul and saturates the cabin with a sound you could sell tickets to hear.

It’s deep and rich and syrupy, sticky with sweetness and threatening with muscle. There’s a trace of induction roar, but most of it is beautifully organised engineering and plumbing and tuning, with Maserati even bringing in a La Scala composer to help it deliver its signature theatrics.

The engine and its note is where the GranTurismo MC delivers on the promise of the body sculpting, by delivering the experience of speed in a way that puts you in the front row of a theatre. Not by delivering actual speed, because a 0-100km/h time of 4.7 seconds is about a second off the pace these days.

It gets worse in the mid-range, where the lack of turbochargers and the paucity of gear ratios mean it will get caught out and thrashed by the German thugs, because 520Nm isn’t much to sing about these days.

Keep spinning that glorious V8 and it’ll whip beyond its power peak at 7000rpm like it’s got another 2000 revs to give, when it’s actually only another 200 revs.

That’s the key to the engine and to the whole car. It’s smooth and sophisticated, calm and glorious. The default in town is to push the Sport button, just ahead of the gear lever, which makes the gearshifts faster but more importantly shortens the exhaust’s path to the outside world and makes an open-air public theatre out of every scrap of the engine’s exertion. It’s unendingly compelling.

It’s also unendingly loud, so it’s best to switch off the Sports mode on highways, lest you fancy headache tablets, but it also helps it to deliver astonishing throttle response at all engine speeds, especially adjusting the car’s stance in a corner.

The Germans tell you their turbo motors have throttle response that approaches a naturally aspirated engine, but they must not be comparing them with Maserati’s naturally aspirated engines...

It spins so smoothly that it often catches you (in its manual mode, shifting with the enormous, steering column-mounted carbon-fibre paddles) by crashing into the braaap-braaap-braaap limiter. No German soft-limiters here.

Instead, Maserati sees it as yet another chance to pull drivers into the experience and it makes the GranTurismo wrap its arms around them again.

All of that just brings unwanted attention to the transmission. It is bearable when you are cruising, and it should be, with two overdriven gears, but people didn’t go to Pavarotti concerts to watch the drummer, especially if the drummer was unfit to sit in the orchestra pit.

It’s not necessarily the number of gears, but it’s always reactive, like it’s behind the game. It unashamedly wastes performance by slushing through shifts to smooth them out and it can be jerky going either way through the cogs when it’s under pressure.

But you might not care because only Aston Martin’s (also naturally-aspirated engines) go close to delivering this level of compelling emotion, and an almost unnatural way of making you feel better about your day every time you climb into it.

It helps that, with a 2942mm wheelbase, the 4920mm coupe actually rides better than it probably should, even though the MC might suffer on some roads because it dispenses with the stock GranTurismo’s active dampers for a firmer fixed-rate set-up.

Both versions use an old-school hydraulic power-steering system with slow gearing that necessitates more arm crossing than an ex-wife at a wedding, yet still manages to deliver the sort of nuance and road input that electric systems ignore.

The outright grip is good, but not that high, even though the new-generation Pirelli P Zeros add another 30 per cent of lifespan (so say Maserati and Pirelli). The important part of the GranTurismo handling package is the progressiveness and predictability.

Its preferred stance is one of a gentle push, especially at higher speeds. At lower speeds, the cornering stance reflects whatever the driver is doing with the throttle.

Yet it all feels somehow removed from the driver, which is odd, because the GranTurismo intentionally throws drivers into the thick of the engine’s orchestra, then pulls them back from the handling front lines.

But anybody who ever lusted after a GranTurismo still can, proudly. The list of stuff the facelift does better is pretty short, based mostly around the entertainment system and the bragging rights of crossing the 300km/h threshold.

The best parts are its heart and soul, which are unchanged, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

2018 Maserati GranTurismo MC pricing and specifications:
Price: $TBC
On sale: Early 2018
Engine: 4.7-litre naturally-aspirated V8
Output: 338kW/520Nm
Transmission: Six-speed automatic
Fuel: 14.3L/100km
CO2: 331g/km
Safety rating: N/A