Maserati Grecale 2022: Italian Porsche Macan rival teased ahead of official launch

---

The 2022 Maserati Grecale is set to launch later this year and sit beneath the larger Levante SUV as a more compact option.

Maserati has teased the new car in a series of intentionally blurry images intended to be first shared by employees on social networks, according to the Italian marque.

The photos were taken outside the brand’s Modena plant during the Grecale’s final testing and evaluation, with Maserati confirming the new car will debut toward the end of this year.

From the pictures, the family resemblance is most apparent from the rear three-quarter, where the Grecale shares its design language with larger Levante cousin.

It’s difficult to tell, but from the front, there appears to be a hint of Jaguar E-Pace to the styling. All will be revealed at the end of 2021, of course.

In Australia, the Levante large SUV is easily Maserati’s biggest seller, accounting for 63 per cent of the marque’s sales in 2020 with 296 sold. The Levante currently starts from $127,000 before on-road costs.

Looking at the sales of the Porsche Macan – which sits below the Cayenne and is the car the new Grecale will target – suggests that the smaller SUV will be even more critical. The Macan accounted for 2,158 of Porsche’s total Australian sales last year, or 50.8 per cent. 

The new Grecale will be built alongside the Alfa Romeo Stelvio at FCA’s Cassino plant in Italy, where the marque has committed 800 million Euros into the new car.

Underneath the new Maserati will rely heavily on the underpinnings of the Stelvio as well.

However, the Grecale will use Maserati powertrains, not Alfa ones. Expect the Ghibli sedan’s twin-turbo V6 with 316kW of power and 580Nm of torque to feature in at least one Grecale variant.

Maserati has also suggested that a battery-electric version of the Grecale will debut next year, following the launch of the Ghibli hybrid and forthcoming Quattroporte PHEV.