WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — If there’s anything more popular than an SUV, it’s a luxury SUV.
Audi or Lexus, Volvo or Porsche, Americans just can’t get enough of the spacious and sporty vehicles with all the high-end trimmings. So Maserati is adding to its lineup. The Italian sports car maker unveiled a new midsize SUV in West Hollywood Monday.
Like the Mediterranean wind that inspired its name, the Grecale (pronounced greh-CAH-lee) is a breath of fresh air. It’s the first car in the Maserati lineup to use a mildly electrified hybrid engine and will be the first to be offered as a battery electric a year after its gas counterpart goes on sale. Maserati will make its entire model lineup available as electrics by 2025 and will be fully electric by 2030.
“Grecale is the next stage of our product Renaissance,” Maserati Americas CEO Bill Peffer said of the sporty SUV with a $63,500 starting price and an "everyday exceptional" tagline. Supply chain willing, the Grecale will be available this fall. Reservations opened Tuesday.
Building on the success of its full-size Levante SUV, which now makes up more than half of the company’s sales volume, and the recent introduction of its 621-horsepower MC20 supercar, the Grecale fuses the two by Shrinky Dinking the Levante’s profile and scaling back the MC20’s F1-derived engine for the street.
The 2023 Grecale is available in three versions. The entry-level GT is powered with a two-liter, turbocharged, inline four-cylinder engine with a mild, hybrid-electric assist. The first mild hybrid engine Maserati has offered in the U.S., it makes 300 horsepower. Leather seats, paddle shifters and 19-inch wheels are standard.
The midlevel Modena trim, expected to be the bestseller, uses the same mild hybrid engine setup with slightly different tuning to generate 325 horsepower. More performance oriented, it includes adaptive suspension, a mechanical limited slip differential and larger 20-inch wheels. Ambient lighting and a dual-pane panoramic sunroof are both included.
The Trofeo model is just as its name implies: it’s the trophy of the bunch with a high-performance focus. Its engine is a version of the MC20’s Nettuno — a three-liter twin turbo V6 that makes 523 horsepower and is the fastest midsize luxury SUV in the market, Maserati says. It rockets from 0 to 60 mph in 3.7 seconds and has a top speed of more than 177 miles per hour. Air suspension and an electronic limited slip differential are standard, as are upgraded Brembo brakes, 21-inch wheels and carbon fiber side skirts.
Maserati says it can fit up to the 99th percentile of body type in both the front and rear seats, with seven more inches of leg room in the Grecale’s back seat and 1.7 more cubic feet of cargo space than its closest (but unnamed) competitor. Peffer’s multiple references to Stuttgart imply Porsche, most likely its Cayenne.
The second SUV from Maserati “will allow us to go after a wider audience in the luxury midsize SUV segment, which happens to be the fastest-growing in North America with one of every three luxury vehicles sold in this space,” Peffer said, adding that the segment is forecast to grow another 25% by 2025.
The Grecale has a sporty look, with windswept LED headlights, flush electronic door handles and Maserati’s iconic trident logo on the grille, rear pillar and rims. Maserati is targeting a younger, more tech-savvy buyer with the new Grecale, including families and female customers.
To that end, all versions of the Grecale include a 14-speaker Sonus Faber sound system, wireless phone charging and Apple CarPlay as standard equipment. They also feature all-new technologies for Maserati, including a pair of foot-wide touch screens in the center console. A 12.3-inch-tall screen tops a second one that is 8.8 inches, with shift buttons separating the two.
The Grecale is the first Maserati to come with a digital, rather than a classic analog, clock that does double duty as a lap timer. It's also the first with a digital concierge that can adjust the temperature and abide by other commands with the simple voice prompt, “Hey, Maserati.” That’s a phrase that could just as easily be uttered by looky-loos when they see the new Grecale speeding by on the street later this year.