Test Drive Maserati Levante 2016

Levante Brand New SUV Star

On the official website Levante is called an SUV. It would be ridiculous, but there are perfectly working electronic imitations of locks, rear self-block and maximum road pneumatic luminaries of almost 250 mm!

From advertising we know that Levante is tights, not a machine. From dictionaries - that it is a damp east wind, carrying cloudiness. In our automobile case, it turns out that if it is the wind, then the most that neither is fresh. You can blame any amount of marketing, but the bill, as they say, on the scoreboard. For the first quarter of this year, the demand for Maserati in Russia has grown 11-fold - and 110 of 111 cars sold - it's Levante.

To the crossover, Maserati went for 13 years. The first concept car named Kubang appeared back in 2003 as the answer to the Porsche Cayenne model, but there was no money for its release. They appeared in 2011, when the second test Kubang was made - not as scary as the first one. The serial car was painted at the Fiat Style Center.

Formally, all the family features of Maserati are preserved here: the ribs of the rear wings, the cut of the side windows and these are the mini-gills in the front, but the harmonious car looks only in certain angles. And in others like Infiniti.


Be that as it may, the Italians managed to deceive the eyes. Levante seems compact, but longer than Cayenne , X5 and GLE ! The choice so far only three-liter "sixes".

" Diesel VM Motori (the engines of this company were once put on our "UAZ") and a gasoline with a bi-turbo-supercharging in the variants of 350 forces and, as in our case - 430.

Gasoline engines - Chrysler, with the angle of collapse of the block at 60 degrees. On the one hand - not cool. On the other - from Chrysler, here, in fact, only the unit itself, the oil and water pumps, and everything else is designed and assembled in Maranello - by Ferrari . It has its own form of combustion chamber, other pistons, direct injection and two turbochargers. However, as sellers say, those who know all this, such machines, as a rule, can not afford.

The grill bars are plastic, they creak at hand. There are no LED headlamps for Levante - only xenon, which can be rotary.

Doors, as the modern crossover supposed, close the threshold - and it's clean. As well as it is necessary to a sports car, at lateral glasses there are no frames.

However, unlike the German top models, there are no doors and door closers - to satisfy the customers accustomed to such details, dealers put them themselves, like tuners for some Priora. Plus, more precisely - minus: the doors do not have enough fixing in intermediate positions.

Inside the Levante is almost a Ghibli sedan : a massive tunnel, a wide console, vertical air ducts in the center and exactly the same steering wheel. It's surprising that it's much closer than it seemed outside. The rear sofa is located below the desired one, plus a bulge protrudes from behind the pillow. To quality of materials to carp it is difficult, landing in sports seats of version S convenient, though without itality has not managed.

First, the selector of the eight-speed "automatic": it's easy to get into the Drive position, it's even easier to go to manual mode, but you can even miss the back gear: you unlocked the lever from the "Drive" - ​​got into the "neutral", pushed it - right away in the Parking.

Secondly, Left petals, which can be ordered with any motor: they are cool in themselves, but block the way to the only located behind the wheel lever.

Here, by the way, adjustable on the fly ... Pedals! And on the back of the steering wheel - Chrysler's same buttons of the audio system. Hello, America - and hello, Porsche: the engine starts up with a button to the left of the steering wheel. In fact, first I swept the Levante with a diesel engine - and quickly returned the car to the owner. Of course, it is not bad, especially as a substitute for diesel Cayenne and X5. People do not have to change habits. But ... It does not sound!

Behind the emblem is a place for the radar of adaptive cruise control, but it was not on our car. But there was a camera of a forward kind: above a trident.

Gasoline 430-strong top-engine - is another matter! At the acceleration with relaxed in the mode of Sport exhaust, he growls, snorts, yells, finally, and then - he shoots the echo when the low gears are turned on. Overdrives in the Sport mode are performed automatically.

Dynamics - do not fill: up to a hundred - 5.2 seconds. But with the emotions of order, there are not a lot of crossover. It's funny, though, that all this audio life is hidden in the trunk - from there comes the roar and the crash of the exhaust. The crossover, as if swallowed a super-cup.

The brakes in version S are angrier than the rest. Six pistons in front instead of four plus are enlarged and drilled themselves disks. With the slowing down dosage and its effectiveness there are no problems.

Normal driving without speeding and acceleration on the Levante S is about 20 l / 100 km.

Italians are sure: Levante is managed better than all crossovers. For all I will not say, but set up the chassis with a pedigree from the old Mercedes passionately.

You want to feed this car with turns! Virazhik for his mother, another for Dad.

She does not need to help, all by herself! The steering wheel is sensitive, but even in heavy traffic jams - no nerves.

Quibbles are possible only on ruts, but these pahulovaniya are uncritical, I would have reconciled.

Surprised by the comfort. It's very quiet here. Double front windows - basic equipment. And if you pay for tinting, then the backs will be double.

Minor unevenness of air suspension Maserati does not notice at all, and in the zone of turbulence enters only the largest, fastidiously shaking wheels after.

In the Sport mode, the whole shivering passes, but the large pits are already painful. In general, the class chassis!

 

It's just Levante, without the prefix S. But he manages to give joy, thanks to the mentally redesigned chassis of the old Mercedes.

Yes, in details, in small things - or even such large devices as a multimedia system, Levante is inferior to German competitors. For example, when you try to open an electronic user's manual (this is obviously the largest file in the system), the system hangs down hopelessly, demanding a reboot. But the thing is that from the Germans to the Maserati and are transplanted - in search of new sensations.

Horrible translation into Russian, an intricate and hanging multimedia system.

Despite the German-American foundation, this machine was obviously done by the Italians!

During the test, we talked with several owners of the Porsche Cayenne and BMW X5 crossovers: one of them considered Levante and asked exactly one question - "Not hard?", Others - to the ladies: "That's exactly such a blue and take!".

 

 And everyone shied away from demonstrating the shortcomings of the car, they say, all this does not matter. But, they say, the design and rarity of the machine in the stream. While sales confirm this approach, as far as this fuse is enough - we'll see in a year or two.

Here's a reference to a set of winter tires, if you decide to buy Levante right now.Moreover, when choosing Levante , it's really worth waiting for - the version with the V8 engine from the Quattroporte sedan is on the way . Such a crossover should be even more Maserati.

Mikhail Lashchuk