The Maserati Folgore: When Lightning Strikes (Silently)

A Maserati is supposed to sound like an argument. This one doesn't say a word. So how does an Italian supercar with no engine still feel like a Maserati?

The GranTurismo Folgore — "lightning" in Italian, because the naming committee had exactly one job — is a 751-horsepower electric grand tourer that does everything a Maserati should do, except make noise. Three electric motors. Nearly 1,000 lb-ft of torque. Zero to 60 in 2.7 seconds. These aren't numbers. These are threats.

The party trick is torque vectoring through two rear motors that turn the car into a corner-exit slingshot. The Folgore doesn't accelerate so much as it relocates you through spacetime. One moment you're at a stoplight. The next, your spine has formed a personal relationship with the seat latch.

But power was never going to be the question here. The question is whether you can take the engine out of a Maserati and still have a Maserati left over. And that's where it gets complicated.

The weight tells on it first.

You won't feel it under power — 751 horsepower makes 5,000 pounds feel irrelevant. You'll feel it under braking. Batteries don't do Weight Watchers. The car carries a 92.5 kWh pack (83 kWh usable) in a T-shaped layout Maserati calls "T-bone" — batteries down the transmission tunnel and behind the rear seats, instead of a flat skateboard under the floor. That keeps the roofline low and lets the Folgore share body panels with the gas GranTurismo, but the car still tips the scales near 5,000 pounds. Your tires will notice. Your brake pads will notice. Your bank account will cry when the replacement bill arrives like an Italian invoice — expensive and slightly accusatory.

The chassis is where it starts arguing back.

Maserati remembered "GT" means Grand Tourer. Air suspension keeps the body flat without rattling fillings loose. The seats support spirited driving without turning your lumbar region into origami. Back seats exist and accommodate actual humans — not happy ones over six feet, but humans nonetheless. Progress.

Charging is the other new vocabulary word. The 800V architecture goes 20 to 80 percent in about 18 minutes, assuming you find a charger that's having a good day — "grab a coffee and pretend to read emails" quick, not "learn a new language" quick. Range depends entirely on whether you drive like a functioning adult or like someone who just discovered what 751 horsepower feels like. Spoiler: I made friends with multiple charging stations.

Inside, the Sonus faber audio system is good enough to make compressed streaming sound like a live performance — I sat in my driveway finishing songs, more than once. The digital clock changes faces like a moody Milanese fashion model. The wireless charger works with your phone case still on, which means someone at Maserati actually uses the technology instead of just drawing pictures of it. Metal pedals. Proper switchgear. Folgore badging that whispers instead of screams.

Then there's the part you can't engineer around.

The silence is the hardest adjustment. Maserati pipes in a synthesized EV soundtrack, but if you grew up on Italian V8 operas, your soul is going to file a missing persons report. Here's the flip side nobody warns you about: the silence makes everything else louder. You hear the tires working. The road texture. The weight transfer through a corner feels more surgical without an engine shouting over it. It's Italian cinema instead of Italian opera — different drama, same country.

So — Maserati without the noise. Still a Maserati, or just an EV wearing the badge?

It's a luxury GT that happens to be electric, not an electric car trying to pass as a GT. That's the actual distinction, and it's the one that matters. Maserati didn't build something that apologizes for being electric. It built something that never forgot what it was underneath.