What’s hot?
- From the grille to the quad exhausts, this car looks fantastic from every angle …
- …indeed, it looks far above its price point: it’s a Maserati.
- Luggage space extendable with drop down rear seats, which is a welcome practicality
- Powerful engine never really wants for real world pace
- Sport button allows you to turn on and turn off the sporty noise characteristics of the exhaust
- 158g/CO2 and 47.9mpg are competitive if not class leading, and much more palatable than the equivalent figures for the petrol Ghibli
- A Maserati for less than £50k, but with real world running costs
What’s not?
- The engine doesn’t mate completely convincingly with the gear box and is lacking in shove below 2,000rpm
- Without or with the exhaust sound actuators switched on, the engine simply doesn’t sound special in the way you’d expect for a Maserati
- The interior is far behind the deeply honed clarity of the opposition, whether that’s Germany or Jaguar…
- …indeed some plastics and fixings (such as the rear seat cup holder arm rest) could have been plucked out of a Fiat for their cheap and flimsy feeling
- The touch screen sat nav is slow witted and just outclassed by the opposition in almost every way