Hear Me Roar

This Is The Levante Gts And It’s Blessed With A Ferrari-built V8 As It Ought To Have Been From Day One. We Take The Maserati For A Spin In California To See Just How Much Of A Difference The Extra Cylinders Make To The Driving Experience...

- Liam Nelso

Carmel, California is a postage stamp of a place with a postcard aesthetic — here the Pacific Coast Highway snakes along sandy beaches, rushing streams, and epic cliffs. Home to 4,500 gentle souls, this golfer’s paradise once boasted a rather famous mayor: Clint Eastwood. But rather than asking his wouldbe constituency, “do you feel lucky, punks?” candidate Eastwood sought to make the West slightly more wild.

Eastwood was an active 55 years young at the time he started his campaign in protest of red tape — the town bureaucracy had stymied his plans to build office space on property he owned, likely resulting in the actor’s trademark scowl. Obviously, you don’t mess with Clint Eastwood, who not only sued the town and won, but decided to run for office and effect real change in his adopted hometown. For Eastwood, this scenic corner of the American West was overburdened with rules — not only were the building permits hard to come by, but a 1929 zoning law still prohibited the sale of ice cream cones. I scream, you scream, Clint screamed for ice cream (or at least the cones) and in the end the man known as Dirty Harry won the vote 2,166 to 799.

It’s a shame he couldn’t have done anything about the speed limits. Like Carmel’s former Mayor, the car that brought me here is equal parts tough and intrepid. You can drive the Maserati Levante GTS up a rocky pass, scanning for bandits in your rear view, or roll up to an Oscar after-party in black tie and mingle with the real bandits of Hollywood. Either way, this is not an SUV that disappoints.