Maserati Levante 2,0L 2023

The Levante is a wind. It blows warm from the east across the Mediterranean, from the Strait of Gibraltar to the coast of the Levant. Maserati named its first SUV after it. Bianco over Cuoio is the Italian summer uniform. White linen, tan leather, nothing else needed. The pearl white holds the Levante's long bonnet and low roofline better than any dark colour and stays cool in August when black paint turns a parked vehicle into an oven. Inside, the saddle-tan hide is the shade of good loafers and old Riva boats. It warms a cabin that could otherwise read cold and ages the way real leather should. The 21-inch Anteo wheels in black keep the whole thing from looking soft. It is the specification you would draw if someone asked what a Maserati SUV should look like parked outside a restaurant in Limassol. It was bought from the official Maserati dealer in Cyprus, has 17,000 km on the clock after three years and has never left the island. Every kilometre on it is a Cyprus kilometre. The GT is the Levante most people underestimate on paper and prefer on the road. The 2.0-litre four-cylinder with a 48-volt mild-hybrid system produces 330 hp and 450 Nm, takes 6.0 seconds to reach 100 km/h and runs on to 245 km/h. More useful than any of those numbers is the weight distribution: this is the lightest Levante built, with roughly a hundred kilograms less over the front axle than the V6. You feel it in the first Troodos hairpin, where the nose follows the steering instead of leaning on it. The eight-speed automatic and Q4 all-wheel drive do the rest without asking for attention. Everything that makes daily life easier was specified. A panoramic roof over both rows. Soft-close doors. A surround-view camera that makes the old town streets of Limassol survivable in something this wide. Heated leather seats with memory, adaptive cruise control, blind-spot monitoring, parking sensors at both ends and a power tailgate. The boot takes roughly 580 litres with the rear seats up, which is