Maserati celebrates Ferrari’s corporate departure with a 202-mph declaration of independence.
The 2022
Maserati MC20 is not related to any Ferrari. Or, for that matter, to any Alfa Romeo, or Fiat, or Dodge/Chrysler/Jeep. It is its own machine, with its own purpose-built engine and carbon-fiber monocoque, and it heralds a new era of independence for
Maserati. Not from the Stellantis empire, mind you, but from its own recent muddled past, when a Maserati’s exhaust note might remind you of a Ferrari, but its instrument cluster would say Dodge Dart. The MC20 is a pair of dihedral doors pointing skyward, toward Maserati’s newfound ambition.
The MC20 is what you might call an entry-level exotic, with a base price of $215,995 and a list of options that can push the price beyond $300K. It’s powered by a 621-hp twin-turbo 3.0-liter V-6 that Maserati boasts is the highest-output production six-cylinder on earth, conveniently forgetting the
Porsche 911 Turbo S (640 horsepower),
Ferrari 296 GTB (654 horsepower), and
Ford GT (660 horsepower). The upcoming
McLaren Artura hybrid also has a V-6, so it appears we’re entering a golden era for six-pot performance, provided you have at least a couple hundred grand to spend.
Great engines should have their own names, and Maserati obliged by dubbing its 3.0-liter “Nettuno,” which is Italian for Neptune. It uses a
patented precombustion design that gives each cylinder two combustion chambers, each with its own spark plug. It’s a turbocharged, dry-sump design, oversquare and built to rev. The horsepower peak arrives at 7500 rpm and its 538 pound-feet of torque is available by 3000 rpm. This ferocious little engine is connected to an eight-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission that drives the rear wheels. While the McLaren and Ferrari V-6s are hybridized, Maserati plans to skip that step and offer the MC20 as a full electric—its carbon tub is designed to accommodate coupe, convertible, and electric variants. For now, though, the MC20 is pure internal combustion. And it’s not shy about it.
From the driver’s seat, this engine plays a singular soundtrack. There’s the heavy breathing from the turbos commingled with an angry blat from the exhaust and the distinctive sound of combustion. There’s no Alfa-style howl here. At steady throttle, the Nettuno issues a sort of pissed-off gurgle that almost sounds like detonation, which is presumably those clever—and patented—dual combustion chambers at work. Just when you thought you’d heard all the sounds an engine could make, here comes Maserati with a new one.
Crack the throttle wide open and that gurgle is subsumed by lots of other noises, like the blood pooling in your ears as your body is crushed into the Sabelt seat. The MC20 dispatches 60 mph in 3.2 seconds, a time that reflects those initial moments when launch control is fighting to keep the rear 305/30ZR-20 Bridgestone Potenza Sport tires from going up in smoke. Once fully hooked up, those 621 horses fully assert themselves, with the quarter-mile passing in 11.0 seconds at 131 mph. It’s cliché to say that a car’s passing power feels like getting rear-ended by a dump truck, but that’s really what it feels like when you abruptly mat the accelerator on the move in the MC20. The transmission downshifts instantly and violently, and then you’re on your way to license-losing speeds. In our 50-to-70-mph acceleration test, the MC20 required only 2.4 seconds. The sensation is that there’s no slack in the system—until you hit the brakes and find that the pedal goes most of the way to the floor before the pads really bite into the optional $10,000 carbon-ceramic rotors. Since this is a brake-by-wire system, we’d suggest Maserati sacrifices some of that easy modulation in the name of increased immediacy.
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