In February, my colleague Conner Golden reviewed the 2024 Maserati GranTurismo coupe, and his comment that there “is great satisfaction to be found in driving a car or truck in its intended environment” struck me as spot on — so when I had an opportunity to spend a week with the GranTurismo’s droptop cousin, the 2024 Maserati GranCabrio, during my visit to Los Angeles for the L.A. Auto Show, I jumped at the chance. Conner took a GranTurismo coupe through several hundred miles of desert interstate, but I took a convertible GranCabrio on coastal California canyon roads, urban highways and neighborhood surface streets, environments better suited to the GranCabrio’s mission.
Related: 2024 Maserati GranTurismo Review: Beyond Next-Gen
The GranCabrio embodies everything you could want or need in a proper L.A. cruiser: gorgeous, standout styling that should snag you VIP position at the valet stand; a luxurious leather-lined interior to coddle you; a powerful, sonorous engine and sport-tuned chassis in case you want to enjoy the twisty canyon roads north of town; a convertible top for soaking in the California sunshine; an eye-popping price tag that doesn’t really faze L.A.’s average residents. It all sounded just perfect.
So, how was the reality compared to the ideal? Again, enjoying a car in its intended environment is supremely satisfying, and most of that holds true for Maserati’s flagship convertible.
That Thing Looks Familiar
The new GranCabrio may look remarkably similar to the prior GranTurismo convertible, which ended production in 2019, but there are plenty of subtle changes to the incredibly sexy sheet metal that freshen it up without abandoning the gorgeous lines of the old droptop. It’s not quite fresh enough to turn many heads at valet stands in jaded Los Angeles, but my deep, sparkly black metallic test car definitely drew some attention from other motorists. I chalk it up to Maserati simply not selling a whole lot of these cars, period, even the old model, making them a rare sight in L.A.’s endless stream of Porsches and Mercedes-Benzes. It looks more classic than modern, but there’s definitely something to be said for classic Italian sports car styling, and the GranCabrio has it in spades. It is simply a gorgeous car in coupe or convertible form, but the droptop’s clean lines only make a good thing better. I’m with Conner: Thank God they didn’t mess too much with the styling, because it’s lust-worthy.
A Proper Canyon Carver
After a blast up the Pacific Coast Highway with the top down to enjoy the sea air (and a stop at my favorite local seafood shack), I turned inland to enjoy Los Angeles’ best feature: twisty canyon roads stretching from the Malibu coast to the Hollywood hills. It’s here where the “Turismo” part of the GranTurismo (or in my case, the GranCabrio) came into play. Maserati has equipped the new GranCabrio with an adaptive, height-adjustable suspension that allows for changes in firmness, responsiveness and body control depending on the setting you’ve selected. It always resets to GT mode when you start it, but you can select Sport for more spirited driving or Corsa if you want maximum responsiveness. Seeing as how the latter also deactivates the traction control, I generally left it in GT mode (Comfort is also available, but we’ll get to that later), with occasional dips into Sport mode to see how the responses changed.
It’s in this environment, with steep rock canyon walls enabling the Nettuno twin-turbo 3.0-liter V-6’s ripping exhaust to ricochet back into the GranCabrio Trofeo’s open-top cabin, that you really get to enjoy what Maserati has created. The V-6 pumps out 542 horsepower and 479 pounds-feet of torque, and it’s mated to a standard ZF eight-speed automatic transmission. Between the traction afforded by standard all-wheel drive, the remarkable responsiveness and eyeball-flattening acceleration of the twin-turbo engine, and its rip-snorting Italian exhaust note, this thing is absolutely made for driving the California canyons. It’s breathtakingly quick, beautifully balanced and ridiculously fun to throw through the sweeping curves and tight switchbacks. The steering is communicative and quick, throttle response is nigh instantaneous, and the brakes are powerfully good at bleeding speed from this heavy 2+2 convertible (although pedal feel is curiously soft and squishy). You won’t mistake the GranCabrio for a sharper German-brand sports coupe or a gut-punching American muscle car, but that’s not the GranCabrio’s mission. It’s a grand touring convertible that’s meant to provide luxury and entertainment in equal measure, and it excels at this mission.
But once you’re out of the hills and into the urban jungle of L.A. itself, the Maserati GranCabrio still works well. Just pop the drive mode into Comfort and marvel at how the suspension now soaks up the cratered hellscape that is the downtown L.A. street grid despite the low-profile tires on staggered 20-inch front and 21-inch rear wheels. There’s even a button that’ll raise the front suspension for a bit at low speeds to allow you to get over speed humps and gutter dips without scraping the front air dam. My only complaint in urban driving was the incessantly squealy brakes, which sent up a screech every time I came to a stop regardless of whether they were cold or hot. You’d think they were old-school carbon-ceramic rotors given the ruckus they made, but Maserati assures me they weren’t.
That Lovely Interior (Full of Fingerprints)
While the outside doesn’t look terribly new (and again, that’s OK), the interior is state-of-the-art for 2024. Acres of sumptuous leather upholstery line the dash, doors, seats and console. Screens replace gauges in front of you and controls in the center of the dash, replacing a lot of buttons in the process. It’s here where the updates are less successful — and less welcome. Many of the GranCabrio’s controls are touchscreen-based now, from the climate controls to the navigation system to most everything in between — except for the transmission gear selector, which is now a push-button affair like in Maserati’s Grecale compact SUV.
Conner didn’t mind these touchscreen controls in the GranTurismo, but I have to disagree with him on this one. They just don’t work well, especially in a convertible, where far more sunlight enters the cabin. The 12.3-inch dashboard touchscreen is generally all right; it’s big and bright, and the Maserati multimedia system works well enough. However, the secondary 8.8-inch touchscreen below it, which houses controls for the climate system, power soft top and more, washes out in bright sunlight. The push-button transmission also often needs several presses to engage whatever gear you’re selecting. The steering wheel uses backlit graphics on all of its buttons, and they also wash out in bright sunlight. And when the car is turned off, you’re left with acres of fingerprint-smudged glass screens and panels. It’s not a sexy look.
This is offset by the materials quality in the cabin, which is truly top-notch luxury-grade. The leather is beautifully grained and soft, and the metal trim is artistically applied and just looks fantastic. Even the 12.2-inch digital gauge cluster looks great, as does the digital round clock atop the dash, which offers a few different looks. And the biggest advantage that the GranCabrio has over other expensive offerings like a Porsche 911 or any other Italian exotic cabrio is real 2+2 seating, with rear seats that are genuinely usable (provided the front-seat occupants scooch forward a bit). There isn’t quite as much room as you’d find in the GranTurismo coupe, but the backseat is still eminently usable, which is something you cannot say about any 911.
The droptop’s biggest drawback is the inevitable reduction in trunk space. If you want to lower the top, you have to manually lower a special tray in the trunk that protects the top’s components, so carrying anything back there other than some soft-sided duffel bags isn’t possible with the top down. I had to keep my medium-size suitcase in the backseat, as there was no way I was going to drive a convertible through Southern California with the top up just because I had luggage with me. I live in Michigan; any day that’s above 50 degrees and sunny, I’m dropping the top — especially on a rare visit to California.
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Perfect for Where It Lives
I ended my time with the ’24 Maserati GranCabrio in Santa Monica, enjoying the sunshine in a beachfront parking lot, taking some pictures and gathering some notes. It really is the perfect L.A. touring car, I thought: stylish, comfortable in all conditions and environments, eminently enjoyable when the roads get entertaining and priced to maintain a little exclusivity, even in L.A. The starting price for my ’24 GranCabrio Trofeo was $204,995 (all prices include destination), but the as-tested price with a host of options (some of which were carbon-fiber frippery-related that you can happily skip) came to $226,950. Interestingly, that’s actually $2,670 less expensive than the loaded GranTurismo Trofeo coupe that Conner tested, and for some reason, the advanced driver-assist system package on the GranCabrio is less expensive than it is on the coupe.
From starting prices alone, however, the GranCabrio Trofeo is $45,000 more than the least expensive GranTurismo Modena trim, and $13,000 more than the GranTurismo Trofeo. Since the GranCabrio is only offered in Trofeo and Folgore (fully electric) trims right now, it makes the most sense to just compare it to the hard-top Trofeo, in which case it’s remarkably comparably priced. And it means that you simply need to decide whether or not you want the full open-air motoring experience from your Maserati GranSomething.
From my week with the perfect L.A. touring car, I can say with unwavering certainty: You absolutely do.
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