By: IOL Motoring Staff
Turin, Italy - These are the first official pictures of the Maserati Levante, due to debut at the Geneva motor show in less than two weeks.
What they show is a big, chunky crossover, with a huge Maserati 'fish' grille between slinky headlight clusters with separate high-beam projectors. Just behind the front wheel you'll see Maserati's signature three air vents, and there's a trident badge on the C pillar.
In traditional Maserati style the door windows are frameless and the roofline tapers almost seamlessly into the rear window and tailgate profile.
Maserati's first SUV in more than a century of carmaking will slot in alongside the Ghibli, Quattroporte, GranTurismo and GranCabrio models to complete its range of distinctively different luxury cars.
The Levante features electronic suspension with active damping control and air springs, an eight-speed automatic transmission and Q4 intelligent all-wheel drive.
No engine details are being released at this stage, other than that there will a range of choices in petrol and diesel, all Euro6-compliant.
And all we can see of the interior in these photos is that the show car has red leather upholstery.
The Levante is already in production at the Mirafiori plant in Turin and will be released in Europe during the second quarter of 2016, rolling out to the rest of the world later in the year.