The New Maserati GranCabrio Really Makes Me Want An Old Maserati GranTurismo Convertible

It’s not a bad time to be wealthy. While the mainstream side of the new car market is waffling between expensive electrification, high-margin crossovers, and just flat-out enshittification through microtransactions, a litany of seriously fast cars are available for anyone with means. Case in point: The new Maserati GranCabrio, a car everyone knew was coming, is finally here. There’s just one problem: It makes me want its predecessor.

This isn’t a nit-picky thing either, like comparing a current Porsche 911 to its predecessor. Despite looking evolutionary, some vast changes have occurred both underneath and in the market positioning of the new Maserati GranCabrio that makes its father worth a second look.

Let’s start with the basics to get you up to speed. Maserati currently offers two different two-door models for about the same money — the MC20 supercar and the GranTurismo grand tourer. The GranCabrio is a GranTurismo, um, cabriolet. Very literal, Maserati is. Still, this means the GranCabrio is meant to compete with the Mercedes-AMG SL rather than chase lap times, which makes it a more tantalizing real-world proposition than the MC20, as cool as that car is.

Up front sits a three-liter twin-turbocharged Nettuno V6 pumping out 542 horsepower in Trofeo trim, and thanks to the presence of all-wheel-drive, Maserati claims the new GranCabrio can dash from zero-to-60 mph in 3.4 seconds. Yep, that’s quick. The only transmission option is a ZF 8HP eight-speed automatic, although since it’s both the gold standard of modern automatic transmissions and controllable through enormous paddles, that’s no hardship indeed. Whether cruising the Italian Riviera or blasting up an Alp, the GranCabrio seems like a promising tool for the job.

Inside, you have two seemingly comfortable seats for front occupants and two likely less comfortable ones in the back, more leather than a Coach store, a soup can-sized analog clock, and a multi-zone climate control panel that looks slightly more complicated than the U.S. tax code. Covering it all is full-bodied sheetmetal that harkens back to a different time. Specially, it carries great hints of 2007.

Maserati’s had an interesting past quarter-century that started with tenure under Ferrari. In 2005, Maserati was ripped away from Ferrari and lumped together with Alfa Romeo, but that didn’t matter — technical merging wasn’t planned, the Quattroporte V had already been engineered, and was ready to donate its bones to a two-door grand tourer. That car was the 2007 GranTurismo, and in drop-top form, was dubbed GranCabrio in most of the world and GranTurismo Convertible in America.

Under the hood sat an F136 V8, sharing an architecture with the engines you’d find in the Ferrari F430 and 458 Italia. Sure, Maserati used a wet sump instead of a dry sump and a cross-plane crank instead of a flat-plane crank, but that didn’t kill the character of this engine. Think rich, intoxicating, full-bodied sound in contrast to Ferrari’s banshee wail.

Of course, the GranTurismo convertible mercifully didn’t use a Ferrari-style single-clutch automated manual transmission as its only gearbox option, as the ZF 6HP automatic transmission came in most models. Silky, smooth, and remarkably quick, it’s a transmission that holds up well today. Speaking of aging gracefully, the chassis features double wishbones up front and a multi-link suspension setup out back, so it has some proper chops to it.

Add in herds of leather and curvaceous sheetmetal, and the old GranTurismo convertible felt like getting a slice of Ferrari at a reduced price and with some extra GT seasoning. It was comfortable, attractive, exotic, capable, and made a fantastic noise. Sure, it might not have been as sharp as a Ferrari California, but it was a bargain compared to the entry-level Ferrari.

In contrast, the new GranCabrio leans more Alfa Romeo. It rides on a variant of the Giorgio platform that famously underpins the Giulia, and while the Nettuno V6 shares bones with the Ferrari F154 V8, the 690T V6 in the Giulia Quadrifoglio also shares a bank angle, stroke, and bore with an F154 variant. Unless wind in your hair is imperative, these on-paper similarities are enough to make you wonder if it’s worth splashing the cash on a new Maserati when the Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio exists. I mean, the hardtop GranTurismo Trofeo starts at $190,000, some $106,535 more than a Giulia Quadrifoglio, so how much will the GranCabrio cost?

Add in the fact that the new Maserati GranCabrio looks like an evolution of the old GranTurismo convertible, and the old car looks rather appealing in the wake of appalling depreciation. Sure, it won’t be cheap to run, but considering you can pick up a good 2019 GranTurismo convertible for between $60,000 and $80,000, that leaves you with a huge delta to cover maintenance. What can six figures in your pocket do for you?

(Photo credits: Maserati)

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