Winds
of Change
Walk down any reasonably smart London street and you’ll see it everywhere… the sports utility vehicle or SUV. Wherever you look, you’ll find Audi Q5s and Q7s, BMW X3s and X5s, Discos, Evoques and Range Rover Sports and, of course, the car that arguably started it all: the Porsche Cayenne. It’s a strange beast, the SUV. It’s big, often too big for cramped city streets, but that doesn’t deter London drivers, who ram them into car park spaces that are really designed for superminis. So why are they so popular? Ironically, their sheer size is part of it. When behind the wheel of an SUV, you are untouchable… you have a sense of security you simply won’t get in a Smart. And because they are built to conquer the great outdoors, they treat London’s ragged speed bumps with such contempt that you seldom realise when you’ve driven over one. That’s why Jaguar has joined in the fun with the F-Pace, why even Rolls-Royce is working on an SUV (under the code name Project Cullinan), and finally why Maserati recently launched the Levante. There’s a lot riding on the shoulders of the Levante. The car, named after a warm easterly wind that blows through the Mediterranean, will double the marque’s annual sales, making it the most significant
Maserati is the latest car manufacturer to build an SUV but, as Matthew Carter discovers, Levante is more performance car than mud-plugger