Styling
While looking quite similar in many respects to the first-gen GranCabrio it has replaced (after a five-year hiatus, obviously), the new Maserati Folgore takes some clear front-end visual inspiration from the
MC20 supercar, as it has the same combination of small, upright headlight clusters framing an oval grille. Yes, that's right; grille. Despite the fact this is an electric vehicle (EV), the GranCabrio Folgore nevertheless appears to have the same cooling aperture as the only other model in the soft-top's range, the petrol-powered Trofeo V6. But if you study them both carefully, you'll notice the vertical slats in the Folgore are open, while the mesh around it is enclosed, while on the Trofeo there's no such mesh.
Indeed, while we're on differences between the GranCabrios both with and without an internal-combustion engine, there are other subtle stylistic cues as to the EV's identity. For instance, it has smaller 'air intakes' at the corners of its front bumper, and no airdam at all beneath the Trident-branded oval grille, whereas the Trofeo has big vents and a full-width opening in the same location. Back with the EV, around the sides there's subtle 'Folgore' badging on the 'cofango' (we'll come back to this, don't worry) and the mismatched alloy wheels (20-inch front, 21-inch rear) on the electric Maserati are more aerodynamically optimised than the rims on the Trofeo. At the back, the lower diffuser area is completely smooth on this car, not punctuated by four exhausts as it is on the V6 GranCab, while the charging port is - weirdly enough - situated just beneath the left-hand lamp cluster. It's not the neatest integration of an EV's top-up system we've ever seen, if we're honest, as the shutline is particularly noticeable on light-coloured cars.
However, overall this is a damned fine-looking machine. The rear lights and general shape of the GranCabrio, including its loooong wheelbase of 2,929mm, are familiar from the car before, but it's all sleeker, more rounded and generally more attractive than it was before. The cofango, by the way, is a portmanteau of the Italian words for bonnet and wings, because to access what would be the engine bay, you open an enormous sheet of pressed metal that forms bonnet and wings into one piece that's more than three metres square - Maserati's quite proud of this, as machining and stamping it takes some serious effort.
And the fabric roof is also beautifully wrought. Crucially, the GranCabrio Folgore looks most splendid with its roof up or down, a process which takes between 14 and 16 seconds (depending on which way the fabric lid is going; it's quicker to open than it is to close), and one which can also be done on the move at up to 31mph. Yes, generally speaking, the Maserati has oodles of kerb presence and enough about it to thoroughly convince bystanders this is a truly exotic, expensive machine. That's the first job of high-end grand tourer comprehensively licked, then.
Interior
Another big plus point for the Maser, because this is a genuinely wonderful and sumptuous cabin, with exquisite material finishing, tastefully refined Italian design, and surprisingly decent ergonomics and tech. On that latter score, there's a central 12.3-inch infotainment system that sports wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto connectivity as well, while in front of the driver is a 12.2-inch digital instrument cluster and a huge head-up display above it. And then, beneath the infotainment screen, is a smaller 8.8-inch pad called the Comfort Display, which handles the in-car climate. So no, there aren't too many physical buttons to play with, but the way all of this looks and operates is excellent.
The seats are also magnificent, with plenty of support and a supple, accommodating feel to them that makes the idea of thousands of miles at the GranCabrio's wheel not seem like it would be a terrible hardship in the slightest. There are also eco-materials used in the cabin, such as the option of having Econyl upholstery which is rustled up from recycled fishing nets. Trust us, it's a quality item and it has a pleasant tactility at odds with its source material.
Finally, audiophiles might be pleased to know that the Maserati comes with a powerful 815-watt, 13-speaker Sonos Faber sound system as standard, but there's an option to uprate that to a 16-speaker, 1,060-watt, 3D Premium Sound offer from the same manufacturer instead, which promises the absolute finest quality of music in the cabin. Well, depending on personal tastes, of course. We can't help you on that score if you're a massive Dane Bowers fan, for instance, and you want to have
Out Of Your Mind playing at 90-odd decibels from your GranCabrio's speakers as you cruise along. Tsk.
Practicality
There's good news and bad news for the GranCabrio here. First, the good: passenger space is remarkably generous, and that includes in the rear of the car. Even with the roof up, a taller passenger can sit in the back and have enough head- and legroom to remain reasonably comfortable, with the space in the footwell all courtesy of that 2.9-metre-plus wheelbase we mentioned earlier. Admittedly, for four adults to fit into the cabin of the Maserati, there would have to be some shuffling about of the electrically powered front seats to make things just so in both rows, and we'd also suggest this theoretical quartet of presumably well-dressed people could not all be six-footers for this premise to work, but as these big convertibles go, it's the GranCabrio which has the most feasible claim to being a full four-seater rather than a 2+2.
The pay-off, however, is that the boot is preposterous. It measures 151 litres with the car's hood up and just 114 litres with the hood down - for reference, on pure litreage alone, a
Fiat 500e Convertible has a bigger boot. Even a
Porsche 911 Cabriolet has more room in its 'frunk' than a GranCabrio running with its hood down. Added to that, it's not a good shape either, so any luggage going in there for grand-touring purposes is going to have to be of the soft holdall type, rather than rigid-body carry-on suitcases. It's for this reason that we suspect those relatively cavernous rear seats are instead going to be pressed into service for carrying the front-seat occupants' baggage, which rather undoes the idea of a grand tourer in the first place.
Performance
This is an area where the Maserati, frankly, has no peers. It is fitted with no fewer than
three mighty 300kW electric motors, and if you know your conversion numbers then that means these make 408hp.
Each. Now, the Trident hasn't quite been mad enough to give customers a 1,224hp grand tourer, but even with a limitation on the peak power there's still 761hp to play with at all times, rising to 830hp for brief periods during the 'MaxBoost' phase. Even more eye-widening is the maximum torque, which is a quite honestly ludicrous 1,350Nm.
So despite the fact the Folgore weighs a portly 2,340kg, a good 445kg in excess of the V6 Trofeo thanks to the 83kWh battery pack this EV has arranged in a T-shape beneath its surface, the performance is utterly phenomenal. It'll run 0-62mph in just 2.8 seconds, while the top speed is not - like other EVs - limited to something strangely low to preserve battery range; no, instead, the Folgore is allowed to run on to 180mph if it wants to, which is why Maserati claims this is the 'fastest electric soft-top in the world'. We're trying to think of
any convertibles which are quicker, to be fair.
And there's no doubting the Folgore's party piece. It is startlingly, brain-meltingly quick in a straight line, the acceleration doing funny things to your cerebral cortex as it attempts to process just how fast this hulking great machine is hurtling for the horizon in an eerie near-silence. Yes, the GranCabrio Folgore doesn't really make much noise when it's going about its business, with a sort of trace level of engine synthesis being emitted above the whoop of the electric motors. This means, like so many mega-power EVs, that the rate of increase in forward momentum doesn't really correlate with the sounds your ears pick up (save for the massive uptick in wind rushing about the Folgore's cabin if you've got the hood down), so it can be borderline nauseous to fully unleash the electric GranCabrio's power at times.
Yet there's little doubting its potency, or the sheer ease with which you can access it. As something you can blast past slower-moving traffic in without even having to think about it, the Folgore is unbeatable. And it'll no doubt delight a younger customer base that wants this sort of show-stopping power at the drop of a hat, so you could easily argue that Maserati has absolutely aced the brief. Especially as the controls are so well-calibrated in the GranCabrio that driving this 762 horsepower goliath in a docile fashion is a cinch; you're not constantly feeling like you have to rein it in if you venture anywhere near the throttle pedal.
Officially, the range of the GranCabrio Folgore is anything up to almost 280 miles, and during our test drive it delivered about bang on its claimed figures with 22.2kWh/62 miles, which equates to a reasonable (for this sort of EV output) return of 2.8 miles/kWh. Thankfully, thanks to an advanced 800-volt architecture, the Maserati regenerates its battery almost as fast as it launches itself at the middle distance if you flatten the right-hand pedal. It has a maximum charging rate of 270kW DC, which means 20-80 per cent for the battery can be achieved in as little as 18 minutes - or, put another way, you get 62.1 miles for every five minutes the car is hooked up to the charger. We urge caution, though, because 270kW chargers are (regrettably) still few and far between, and on a much more common 50kW DC unit you'd need 100 minutes (an hour and forty) to do 20-80 per cent. AC connections top out at 22kW, which would require four hours to fully replenish the Folgore's battery, but a typical 7.4kW domestic wallbox will take more like 11 hours to do the same job.
Ride & Handling
Now. This is where the GranCabrio Folgore's case comes apart at the seams a little, if we're honest. Just a little, mind; indeed, viewed from a purely technical aspect, for Maserati to have crammed three powerful e-motors, a huge T-shaped battery pack and all the structural/electric motor magubbins required for a full-sized soft-top into one elegant-looking machine, the way the car drives is quite remarkable.
But it's not perfect, and if we're honest it's also nothing like as enjoyable nor as engaging as the V6 Trofeo, which is a good sixteen grand cheaper - it might be slower than the Folgore, but it's a heck of a lot noisier (in a good way) and it feels more balanced. This is because the electric GranCabrio is very much a point-and-shoot kind of vehicle. It's so heavy that when you start tipping it into bends with any great gusto, you sense the mass of it loading up on the suspension and you also discern that the tyres are not entirely happy about what they're being asked to do.
It's the braking which is most alarming, though. Because the Folgore is so monstrously fast on the straights, if you decide to start extending its motors then you are invariably arriving at each and every corner about 20-30mph faster than you were initially intending too. Whereupon the stopping pedal doesn't give the most reassuring feel underfoot, nor do the brakes (now in their proper 'action', rather than mere regeneration mode) provide much bite. Driving the Folgore fast on a twisting, challenging route is a somewhat ragged, sweaty-palmed affair, and the car soon encourages its driver to calm things down a bit and settle into a steadier pace.
But as it's a grand tourer, is that a problem? Surely the Folgore, with its lack of a loud and vibration-inducing internal-combustion engine, will be the supreme cruiser we're hoping for? Well... no, it's not that, either. Even in their softer settings, the Maserati's adaptive dampers can't ever quite fully cope with the bulk of this zero-emission GranCabrio, nor can they disguise the fact that there's a lot of unsprung mass at each corner of this car. So it fidgets about too much at low speeds on poorer tarmac, more noticeably than the trimmer, lighter Trofeo model does and with greater apparency than a grand tourer strictly should display. Like many a modern car, the ride quality of the GranCab Folgore improves significantly once you get more speed dialled into it and the road surface is of a higher standard, but it's a shame there's too much brittleness about it in urban areas. Especially as this characteristic also highlighted trace levels of scuttle shake in the frame of the car, too.
No complaining about the rolling refinement, though. Even with the hood down, clever aerodynamics make the cabin of the Folgore a pleasant place to be spending time, while the quietness of the overall vehicle is exemplary. Hood up and the interior is close to cathedral-like in terms of noise levels within, so there's little doubting the benefits the electric powertrain brings to the Maserati grand tourer in this regard.
Value
Its purchase price of more than £185,000 doesn't exactly scream 'bargain!', so we're not about to try and claim that of the Maserati GranCabrio Folgore. However, equipment levels are thoroughly generous across the board on this car, while its obvious strong suit will be its running costs. No other luxury soft-top like it will ever be as cheap to run as the Maser, given they all have thirsty combustion engines - and typically one with at least eight cylinders, or even more in some cases - although as with any EV, to get the best financials from the Folgore, owners will need to charge it more at home than they are doing on pricey DC connections. Nevertheless, electric power means you get the blistering performance figures, without having fuel bills that will be enough to make even the most stoic of high-net-worth individuals weep.
Verdict
The Maserati GranCabrio Folgore is a mighty, mighty impressive achievement. It looks wonderful, inside and out, and there's loads of space in the passenger compartment, even if there isn't in the boot behind it. And many people will simply be blown away by how mesmerisingly fast this Italian grand tourer is, to the point that they'll sign up for one there and then if they can afford it. It also promises low running costs and high levels of rolling refinement, but we're a little concerned at the fact the Maserati doesn't have the greatest low-speed ride comfort we've ever experienced, nor does it feel particularly limber or willing in the corners either. Luckily, there's another GranCabrio which solves both of those problems and is less money to buy to boot, so we'll be bringing you a review of the sparkling Trofeo very soon. In the meantime, we thoroughly admire the GranCabrio Folgore... but we don't adore it.