The Italian brand’s first supercar in nearly 20 years could also be its last hurrah to true ICE power

2022 Maserati MC20

Launched: March 2022, Price S$788,000 without COE (April 2022)
Two-door high-performance supercar, two seats
620hp 3.0-litre petrol engine, VES C2, 11.5L/100km

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PROS
Supercar style and performance
Balanced chassis

CONS
Engine note at top end isn’t great
Don’t expect to carry much at all

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SINGAPORE

As we initially explained in our initial launch story, the Maserati MC20 is kind of a big deal because it’s the Italian brand’s first mid-engined supercar in a really long time. The last one before this was the limited edition Maserati MC12, which was based on the Enzo Ferrari and saw production only between 2004 and 2005. The brand has moved plenty of Levante SUVs and Ghiblis since then, but the MC20 takes up the story from 2022 as the brand’s headlining car.

In person it’s a car with a lot of presence despite its somewhat diminutive size, for a supercar at least. There are no gigantic rear wings and aero appendages hanging off the sides, and the body has a sense of compactness to it in the way the air ducts and intakes are all sculpted to have a clear sense of flowing design. The show stoppers are the dihedral, or butterfly doors, which open and swing upwards at a 45-degree angle. It’s a system that has been around for decades but recently has had a bit of a renaissance amongst supercar brands. 

Drop into the driver’s seat, and depending on your regular habitat, you’ll either feel a bit lost, or find everything somewhat familiar and Ferrari-esque. The gear selectors are a bunch of buttons on the centre console, the start button is on the steering wheel, and the windows are activated with switches on the centre console. It’s all very reminiscent of the other Italian brand with the prancing horse, though if you know your cars it’s not very much of a surprise as Ferrari has been building Maserati’s engines since 2002 and some of that DNA has been ported over in other areas as well.

Maserati claims that the Ferrari engine relationship is changing this with the MC20 though, as the car’s enormously powerful turbo V6 engine is supposed to be built entirely in-house. We’ll get to that in a bit, but for now it’s worth noting that this is a car that you can store and carry very little in. It’s not as tiny as an Alpine A110 S, but where cabin size is concerned it’s close. The doors have no pockets because they swing upwards. The centre console is narrow, with only space for a wireless smartphone charging dock and a single, rearward-fitted cup holder that you have to contort to reach. There’s absolutely no space behind the seats for any kind of storage either. 

The boot is a narrow, 148-litre shallow space behind the engine, and the front trunk is a shallow recess that holds the emergency tyre inflator and repair kit. You’ll be able to place a makeup bag alongside them, but that’s about it. 

As far as controls go however, at least most of the buttons on the car are still real tactile buttons rather than slippery-slidey touchpads. In a car that’s capable of topping out at 325km/h, you’ll want both eyes on the road and your hands need to operate controls by feel alone.

Rearward vision is pretty poor through the tiny letterbox of a rear window, so the centre rear view mirror utilises a high-def video camera instead. You can deactivate it where it simply reverts to being a normal mirror, but the video image is very clear with stunning contrast. In daytime, you can clearly see who the occupants of the car behind you are through it. 

The MC20 scores high on old-school, petrol-powered supercar bang-for-buck. The turbo 3.0-litre V6 has 620 horsepower and a maximum torque of 700Nm. The car weighs 1,475kg, which is light by supercar standards, and is exclusively rear-wheel drive. With the help of properly sticky tyres and plenty of electronic traction aids the car has a claimed 0 to 100km/h launch time of 2.9 seconds. That’s equal to the new Ferrari 296 GTB, which is a much pricier car.

But wait, Maserati wants to be pedantic with figures and on the official literature the MC20’s 0 to 100km/h launch time is stated loudly as 2.88 seconds. Don’t round off the numbers, and you get to place an ‘8’ behind the ‘2’. Eight is faster than nine, right? 

There’s no doubt that this is a brutally quick car, but the engine note at the top end of its operating range is a cacophony of whistles, rumbles, and trashy noises all at once. It doesn’t have the nice wail of a traditional Ferrari V8, but at the speed at which the engine spins up, you have other things to immediately pay attention to, like hanging on to your driver’s license.

Just how well does a plug-in hybrid Ferrari drive?

Just to see how good its fuel economy is, we tried a gentle cruise with a light right foot for about 15km on the expressway when there were few cars around. The result was 11.7L/100km, not far off its official claimed figure. In real-world conditions with the occasional ‘spirited’ driving, expect around 14.5L/100km.

It’s a very dynamically connected car, with a lively chassis that’s well-matched with the power from the engine. Even at urban speeds the brake pedal feel is very clearly something out of a car meant for circuit use. It has very little power assistance, is packed with feel and very easy to modulate.

Unlike the much cheaper Lotus Exige Sport 350, the MC20 is not a tiring car to drive for long stretches of time at all. It’s a proper GT car, as long as you don’t carry any luggage, that is. Maserati also states that there is an all-electric version of this car, built around the same chassis, on the horizon. No one is immune to the EV wave of the future.

Some say this is the everyday performance car

The MC20 is certainly a looker that will turn people’s heads, and while Lotuses are arguably much cheaper cars that can do the same, they are a different breed of sports car entirely. When all the options are added and COE factored into the final price the MC20 is going to cost around a million dollars. The Audi R8 is the MC20’s closest competitor in price, though for pure bragging rights the Maserati is a very much faster car. Meanwhile the Porsche 911 Turbo is more expensive and matches the MC20 for speed.

Supercar owners in Singapore tend to have more than one of them in the garage at any time and change them out as it suits their fancies, so we think that the MC20 will go into plenty  ‘for the driving experience’, before the owner tires of it and swaps it out for another supercar.

Maserati MC20

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