Alfa Romeo Giulia vs Maserati Levante

What's the difference?

The Giulia is a love letter to the increasingly lost art of the sporty executive sedan. As refined as it is beautiful and oh-so elegant to drive, it’s a reminder of why we always love Alfa Romeo, even when the odds are against it.

Emotional cars like this are hard to come by and they will soon be gone, replaced by something new. The future is not necessarily worse, but it will be different, so if a sporty European sedan with a combustion engine is calling out to you don’t miss your opportunity to drive the Giulia while it still exists in this form.

Maseratis are built for a fairly specific niche buyer; someone with a lot of money, someone slightly older and certainly someone who likes the finer things in life and appreciates Italian style, quality and heritage.

They are not, typically, the kind of buyers who want to tear around race tracks like fiends in big, shouty SUVs. But apparently there is a niche within the niche of Maserati fans who do, and they are willing to invest big dollars in vehicles wearing the Trofeo badge, like this Levante.

It might seem a slightly strange creation, a track-mad SUV with a screaming Ferrari engine, but surprisingly, it really does work.

Like any good Alfa Romeo should be, the Giulia is a work of art. It’s sleek, sharp, and immaculately proportioned.

This most recent update has artfully refined a formula too good-looking to mess with. The increasingly dorky headlamps from the previous car have been swapped out for a more contemporary all-LED set, with a three-bar DRL pattern.

The grille has also been tweaked for this update for a more modern style, and the Veloce is now graced with the iconic and more aggressive sport two-tone alloy wheels in the traditional five-hole 'tele-dial' style.

It’s effortlessly attractive, and instantly recognisable as an Alfa on the road. I can’t think of a better way to stand out in today’s executive sedan landscape.

The interior has received less of an upgrade for the 2024 model year, with the same core parts. The major change is the old-school analogue instrument cluster being swapped out for a slick 12.3-inch digital unit.

The puzzling thing about this is the 8.8-inch central multimedia screen hasn’t been upgraded in-kind, making a strange contrast between the sharp and fast digital instruments, and the laggy and dull multimedia panel.

At least it effortlessly sits behind the curvaceous design of the dash as to not interrupt a good shape.

There are of course plenty of other touches which I love. The leather seats look and feel the part, as do the real metal paddle shifters which float behind the simple yet refined and sporty steering wheel.

The push-to-start button on the wheel is reminiscent of other Italian sports machines, while the tasteful smattering of leather, gloss plastic, and textured surfaces keep the premium feel on-track.

Some areas I’m not so keen about: Some of the interior plastics, particularly for buttons and toggles, feel cheaper than they should, and the door cards are oddly basic considering how much attention has been given to every other part of this car’s look and feel.

While the other two Maseratis to get the Trofeo treatment - the Ghibli and Quattroporte sedans - are undeniably lovely, the Levante is not quite as pretty.

Admittedly, for an SUV, it looks very good, and the Trofeo touches - that big, nostrilled bonnet, the red gills on the sides, the carbon, the badges - really do lift its game to another level.

Overall, though, the Levante has just never felt beautiful enough to me to be a Maserati. These guys really do style well, as you'd expect from a premium Italian brand, but making an SUV sexy is beyond even them.

I'll grant you, it does look good from front on, but at the rear they just seem to have run out of ideas.

Credit is due for feeling properly special inside, however.

The Giulia is an old-school low-slung sports sedan. Many will prefer the SUV sensibilities of the Stelvio, with its bigger hatch-opening boot, and its higher ride height can better accommodate less mobile passengers, and makes it easier to fit child seats and the like.

For those willing to trade those things away for a superior drive experience, the Giulia is still solid to live with every day, but has a few drawbacks.

For example, those strangely basic door cards offer only a tiny map pocket with a nook I’d hardly describe as a bottle holder.

The centre console offers two larger bottle holders with variable edges, but there’s also not much else in the way of storage in the cabin aside from a smaller-than-average glove box and armrest console box.

The big win for me is the physical dial set and shortcut buttons for all the key climate functions, making it easy to operate while you’re concentrating on driving.

At least the seats are well bolstered, and front passengers are treated to plenty of adjustability. Visibility is okay, and it was easy for me to find a comfortable driving position at 182cm tall.

The rear seat is a similar story. It’s tighter, and you have to duck down below the roofline to get into it.

Once inside, I was pleasantly surprised to find enough room for my knees and somewhere for my feet to slide behind my own driving position, although the centre position is all but useless thanks to an enormous raise for the driveshaft.

Headroom is passable, but you wouldn’t want to be much taller than me. 

There are, again, tiny bottle holders in the doors, and a further two in the drop-down armrest. Rear seat passengers get dual adjustable air vents on the back of the centre console, one USB 2.0 outlet, and elastic nets on the backs of the front seats.

The boot measures 480 litres which is up there with a lot of mid-size SUVs, but because it’s a sedan, access is more limited, and it won’t accommodate as many awkwardly-shaped objects.

If you've got to move five people in a genuine hurry, the Levante is a pleasant way to go about it.

There's plenty of head and shoulder room, the seats, while firm in the front, are pleasant to the touch and supportive and there's a 580-litre boot with an electric tailgate and split-folding seats.

The boot feels properly spacious, too, with a 12-volt power outlet and four tie-down points. You won't, however, find a spare wheel out there, so serious off-roading is out (although it probably was already if you look at those expensive wheels).

There are huge door pockets with room for bottles and two big cup holders in the front. The centre-console bin looks lovely, it's all carbon fibre, but is quite small.

There are also three USB points, one in the front and two in the rear, and Apple CarPlay and Android Auto connectivity.

I'm sorry, but $330,000 for an SUV, of any kind? Personally I can't see the value, but then personally, as we'll discuss below in the Design section, I can't see the attraction.

This is one of the most expensive SUVs money can buy, well above things like Range Rover Sport SVR ($239,187) or even Porsche Cayenne Turbo Coupe ($254,000), although a pricier Ferrari one is surely on the way.

You'd want a lot for that, and the way it drives and sounds, thanks to that Ferrari engine, accounts for quite a few dollars.

There's also an undeniably high-quality feel to everything you touch on the car, inside and out, and a vast quantity of carbon fibre everywhere as well.

Other highlights include the 21-inch machine polished wheels, an 8.4-inch touchscreen with Navigation and DAB radio, full matrix LED headlights, and incredible Pieno Fiore natural leather, “the best the world has ever seen”, as Maserati says.

The lovely if firm front seats are heated and ventilated, sporty and 12-way adjustable, with Trofeo logos stitched into the headrests. The rooflining is lovely Alcantara, the steering wheel is sporty and features carbon-fibre shift paddles, ad the stereo system is Harman Kardon Premium and has 14 speakers.

And even the rear seats are heated. It feels expensive, and it should. But still, $330K?

The Veloce might not pack a Ferrari-derived six-cylinder engine like the Quadrofoglio, but its smaller 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbocharged petrol engine hardly wants for power.

Packing 206kW/400Nm it outpunches six cylinders of old easily, and is still capable of sprinting to 100km/h in a hot-hatch baiting 5.7 seconds to a Vmax of 240km/h.

It even sounds fantastic, as it flies up the rev-range living up to every bit of the Alfa promise. Peak power arrives at 5250rpm, but peak torque hits at 2250rpm.

Smooth shifts are provided courtesy of an eight-speed traditional torque converter automatic transmission.

This will be the last time Maserati gets a proper Ferrari engine like this a 3.8-litre twin-turbo V8 shouty monster, which is good for 433kW and 730Nm.

The future, as is the case everywhere, is going to be more electric and less noisy. For now, anyone who can should enjoy this V8 masterpiece, which drives all four wheels through Maserati's Q4 on-demand all-wheel drive system via a limited-slip rear differential and uses an eight-speed automatic transmission.

Its claimed 0 to 100km/h time is 3.9 seconds, which puts it in what used to be super-car territory, and is still very quick indeed, while top speed is an unimaginable 304km/h.

The 2.0L turbocharged engine has an official combined cycle fuel consumption figure of just 6.1L/100km, although I saw 9.0L/100km in my time with it.

I’ll admit it was being enthusiastically driven, and treated to lots of urban commuting.

The Giulia has a 58-litre fuel tank and requires mid-shelf 95 RON premium unleaded fuel. Its approximate range on a full tank at the official consumption is 951km.

The official claimed fuel economy for the Maserati Levante Trofeo is 13.5 litres per 100km, but good luck with that. 

A more realistic number would probably sit somewhere above 17 litres per 100km, and we would have easily exceeded 20 litres while driving it like lunatics around a track.

But you just paid $330K for an SUV, what do you care about fuel economy?

Put simply: The Giulia is a celebration of Alfa Romeo. Yes. Even with a humble 2.0-litre turbocharged engine and an automatic transmission, this is a deeply emotional car. A riveting experience from behind the wheel.

Fly round corners, your eyes wide, exclaiming ‘magnifico!’ as the Giulia gracefully leans in, the rear LSD, sporty tyres, and wonderfully tight steering working together in harmony as you eke out just a smidge of tyre roar.

Laugh out loud to yourself, as you plant the accelerator, hear the muted rumble of the surprisingly angry little engine, and feel the turbocharger kick in half a second later as you power out.

‘Eccezionale!’ You’ll think, as you feel the click of the immensely satisfying metal paddle-shifters, and the transmission responds in-kind, the engine roaring up the revolutions with enthusiasm.

Sure, the Veloce grade is not as raw, or as wild, or near as fast as the top-grade Quadrofoglio, but all of the exciting spirit of  that car is still here, and at a little over half the price, too. The Veloce is an absolute delight to drive.

It has such poise, makes such a fine sound, and does it all so gracefully. This is how you make a car feel as one with the driver.

Even the ride is deeply impressive. It’s not too harsh or noisy, while gifting the chassis just the right amount of lean in the corners and allowing enough play for it to remain controlled over bumps.

Not only does it work well when you’re driving as it's clearly intended to be driven, but around town it’s quiet and refined inside, living up to the promise of a luxury sedan.

The seats and bolstering are great, the visibility isn’t too bad, and while I’ll complain about the slightly laggy software on the multimedia screen, the digital dash is responsive and the physical climate controls are welcome.

It’s not all perfect. If it were, I think it might cease to be an Alfa Romeo and start sprouting BMW badges.

For example, our test car, with less than 2000km on the odometer, had various inconsistent rattles emanating from the plastic garnish around the digital dash, and somewhere behind the back seat.

Regardless, driving this car has made me a little sad Alfa will be putting this wonderful platform behind it in pursuit of more electrified goals.

I can only hope wherever the Giulia nameplate goes next, it retains the spirit of this version.

We got to drive all three Trofeo-fettled Maseratis on track at Sydney Motorsport Park, and before that on the road, where the Levante felt very pleasant, and pleasantly expensive at all times.

As you might expect, a vehicle with 433kW is difficult to fully appreciate on public roads, although there was the occasional and exciting change to give it a quick, loud blat between gears.

It only takes hearing that engine note, and feeling that torque surge, a few times to see why someone might fall in love with this car, or at least this engine.

Out on the track, the rear-driven Ghibli and Quattroporte, which share the Levante's engine, were surely the more fun and frenetic things to drive, but there were those who chose the Levante as their best of the three, even for circuit driving.

There's no doubt that its on-demand all-wheel-drive system, which is biased towards the rear but asks the front wheels for help when required, made it feel the most planted, and the safest, through fast and slow bends.

There's a definite sense that its engine is being asked to work the hardest, though, to push all that bulk through the air (although its brakes never seemed to fade, which is impressive with more than two tonnes of SUV to stop).

While the big, deafening V8 is willing and keen to rev all the way to 7000rpm (where it bangs on the redline waiting for your upshift, if you're driving in manual mode - I do like that), it started to make large sucking sounds towards the top of each gear, as if it was desperately trying to get more oxygen in.

It genuinely sounded different to the other two Trofeo cars, which is odd, but perhaps they just weren't as near their limits. That bulk also slowed it slightly in terms of top speed down the straight, but it still exceeded 220km/h with ease.

What should be said is that I was genuinely shocked at how good the Levante Trofeo was around a track. So much so I asked to have a second go, just to make sure I wasn't going mad.

Sure, it makes no sense to me personally, and I don't know why anyone needs an SUV that's good on a track, but if you do, I can recommend the Levante for sure.

That hugely enjoyable engine is just too much fun, although it's even better in a sedan like the Ghibli...

Maserati's safety offering on the Levante includes six airbags, a reversing camera and 360-degree overhead camera, parking sensors front and rear, adaptive cruise control and Blind Spot Detection, Forward Collision Warning Plus, Pedestrian Detection, Lane Keep Assist, Active Driver Assist and Traffic Sign Recognition.

There is no ANCAP rating for the Levante as it's not been crash tested here.

Alfa finally updated its warranty to a more industry-standard five-years and unlimited kilometres in 2022.

Service intervals occur at 12 monthly or 15,000km intervals for the 2.0-litre turbocharged variants. Pricing was not available for the model year 2024 version yet in the brand’s online calculator, but to give you an idea for the pre-facelift version, pricing came in between $345 and $1065 per visit, averaging $573 per year for the first five years of ownership. Not cheap, but not as expensive to run as you might expect.

One thing you might want to keep in mind is depreciation. Boring, I know, but even late model examples of the Giulia and Stelvio have been hit particularly hard by the depreciation stick according to residual values we searched up on Autotrader.

For reference, the Genesis G70 and BMW 3 Series have both fared much better in equivalent 2.0-litre turbo forms.

Maserati offers a three-year, unlimited kilometre warranty, but you can choose to buy 12-month or two-year warranty extensions, and even a sixth or seventh-year drive-train warranty extension.

When much, much cheaper Japanese and Korean cars are offering seven and even 10-year warranties, this is so far off the pace that such a fast vehicle should be embarrassed. And if you're buying something Italian, a better, longer warranty would seem like a must. I'd be negotiating at sale for them to throw the longer warranty offer in.

Maserati says servicing for the Ghibli has a "ball park costing of $2700.00 for the first three years of ownership" with a service schedule of every 20,000km or 12 months (whichever occurs first)

Also, "please note that the above is indicative only of the manufacturers basic routine service maintenance schedule and does not include any consumable items such as tyres, brakes etc or additional dealership charges such as environmental levies etc."