Our roads were once filled with grand touring cars, providing the manners and style of a sports car but with more room and comfort. They're now shunned for the working-class SUV, which is little more than a modern-day Conestoga wagon. It's as if consumers are comforted by the ability to haul people or cargo at a moment's notice.
Of course, the truly wealthy pay others to haul. They indulge themselves driving cars like the 2025 Maserati GranCabrio Folgore. It's a GT of the first order, the sort of car Maserati has been building since the 1950s.
But this four-seat droptop comes with a diff erence from past GTs: It's powered by electricity and is the only vehicle in its class. If you'd rather, Maserati also off ers it with a gas engine, in which case it's named the GranCabrio Trofeo. Having sampled both, I expected to prefer the petrol-powered Trofeo, with its sonorous exhaust singing with the distinct beauty of a great Italian automotive tenor.
But it pales in comparison with the Folgore, powered by an electric motor up front and two in the rear, providing all-wheel drive. Its 83-kilowatt-hour battery pack provides 233 miles of driving range, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Using a DC fast charger, it can gain 62 miles in five minutes, according to Maserati.
More importantly, it runs 0-60 mph in 2.7 seconds. Top speed is 180 mph.
It's electrifyingly quick, which is perhaps why it's named Folgore, the Italian word for lightning. In the Folgore, the automaker di.