Maserati Levante Trofeo
Why 5.3: The F154 twin-turbo V8 assembled in Maranello, tuned to 590 hp for the Levante and given a Corsa mode with launch control. Maserati's problem was never the engine — it was that the rest of the car arrived four years after everyone else's.
Layout
Natural habitat
Ride comfort
Sound
The 3.8 is assembled by Ferrari and, with the exhaust valve open, has a metallic edge no German SUV V8 matches. But the turbos take the top off it and the standard mid-section is carried over from the V6 car, which strangles most of what is left.
8-cylinder · turbocharged · 6,750 rpm redline · rated 6.2 / 10 for engine sound
Market value
Median asking price, good condition · €157k (2019) → €61k (2026), trending down · illustrative data
Child seats · ISOFIX
Two ISOFIX positions on the outer rear seats, the outer pair being the ones the standard covers.
The rear anchors are the supported route — the manual points child seats there, and front-passenger ISOFIX is the exception rather than the rule. A belt-mounted seat up front needs the airbag off, and cars with a rear row don't always fit a deactivation switch, precisely because the rear seats exist.
Derived from production years and seating layout, not a per-car source. ISOFIX was standardised as ISO 13216 in 1997, required on new EU model types from 2011 and on all new EU cars from 2014.
The long version
The Levante Trofeo cost $171,475 in 2019, which put it against the Urus and the Cayenne Turbo, and it lost that fight on interior quality, software and residuals rather than on pace. What follows from that is the whole ownership picture. There is no speculative market for a Levante Trofeo and there never was, so nobody is holding one as an asset; first owners took the depreciation, which has been among the steepest of any modern performance SUV, and the cars now change hands at a fraction of sticker. The people buying at that price are buying a Ferrari-built V8 with a warranty question mark, and they drive it — the mileage on used examples is ordinary-SUV normal, not garage-queen low, because a Levante is a perfectly usable car that happens to be worth a third of what it cost. The flip factor is the weak half of the score, but not for the usual reason: the churn is first owners getting out rather than speculators getting in.