Simply Abu Dhabi XXIV

2 4 1 S I M P LY A B U DH A B I Y ou can’t blame luxury and sports car manufacturers like Maserati, Bentley, Jaguar and even Lamborghini for getting into the SUV game. While sales in their traditional categories are down by more than 20 percent, the big, moneyed off-roader segment has climbed 40 percent in the past five years alone. And so Maserati brings us the Levanté – and like the northern Italian gale-force wind it’s named after, the company hopes it will lift the brand and carry it to new heights. The Middle East and North America are the first markets to get the Levanté with deliveries to Europe, Asia and the rest of the world starting at the end of the year, so we’re among the first to get behind the wheel and see what it’s like on- and off-road and – because it’s a Maserati – on track as well. When the concept surfaced at the 2010 Frankfurt and Dubai auto shows, the intention was for it to be manufactured in the US but plans changed in the spring of 2012. Initially, Levanté was to be based on the Jeep Grand Cherokee; however, Levanté’s underpinnings are pure Italian, being based on the Ghibli sedan, and it’s built entirely at Fiat’s Mirafiori plant near Turin at an initial rate of 30,000 units per year. Mirafiori was chosen because it has been successful over many years assembling the wide and tall Fiat Multipla, the Alfa Romeo 164 and the Lancia Thesis, while in volume terms, it’s not restricted by capacity so they can hit Maserati’s target over a two-shift operation.