Maserati

A Maserati rental with us means one car, the MC20, and the decision is not which Maserati but whether this is the Italian exotic you want instead of the two everyone rents. It usually is, for a specific kind of person.

The MC20

Butterfly doors, a carbon fiber tub you swing your legs over every time you get in, and a 3.0 liter twin-turbo V6 that Maserati builds in Modena and calls Nettuno, 621 horsepower, 0 to 60 in under 3 seconds. No wings, no active aero, no shutters opening and closing. It looks clean where a Lamborghini looks angry, and it is faster than it looks.

Who Picks It

The person who did the Lamborghini already and wants the next one to be a car other exotic owners walk over to see. The person taking someone to dinner who wants the passenger comfortable and able to talk, because the cabin is Alcantara and carbon and quiet at cruise. The person who tried a Ferrari and found the noise outside louder than the pleasure inside. The MC20 is the exotic that feels nice to sit in, and that is rarer than it sounds.

What to Know Before You Book

The doors open up and need a firm pull down to close, which everyone gets wrong once. The brakes are carbon ceramic and want a firm foot until they warm up. Storage is small, a front compartment a little bigger than a cubby and a shelf behind, and both get hot, so nothing meltable rides in there. Forward visibility is unusually good for a mid-engine car, the front fenders are visible from the seat, and that makes it a calmer car in traffic than its shape suggests. Maserati rentals run about $1,295 a day.

The One You Chose

In Los Angeles, a Ferrari or a Lamborghini reads as leased. The MC20 reads as chosen. It is rare enough that other exotic owners cross the lot to look at it, and the general public does not read the trident at all, they read the doors. The butterfly doors go up at a valet stand and phones come out regardless of what anyone knows about Maserati. That is the image in one line. Italian, elegant, and yours because you picked it, not because it was the default.

The honest version is that the badge carries baggage from years of ordinary sedans, and spec-sheet people hold the V6 against it. Neither survives a drive. The car is the point, and the car is the biggest step forward the company has made in decades.

How the MC20 Earns It

The Nettuno V6 uses a pre-chamber ignition system borrowed from Formula 1, which is how a 3.0 liter engine makes 621 horsepower, more than 200 for every liter of displacement. The noise it makes is not the exhaust. It is the intake. Lift off the throttle at 30 mph on a residential street and the turbos whoosh and whistle behind your head like the engine is laughing at you, and passengers giggle every time.

The chassis is a carbon fiber tub, which is why the sill you climb over is exposed and why the car weighs what it weighs. The steering is quick and light rather than heavy, so the nose changes direction with almost no effort, a completely different sensation from a McLaren's heft. The suspension has a soft setting that makes the car genuinely comfortable over a long distance. Add wireless CarPlay that works, a rear-view mirror that is a camera and switches back to glass at a touch, and seats that hold you without punishing you, and you have the mid-engine car people describe as quiet luxury. Fast when asked, calm when not, and never shouting.

Where the MC20 Belongs

A Maserati rental in Southern California is a dinner car and a coast car more than a canyon car. It looks right in the valet line at a hotel in Beverly Hills, outside a restaurant in Laguna Beach, at the entrance of a resort in Indian Wells. The suspension is soft enough that the long run down the 5 to La Jolla or out the 10 to Palm Springs is a pleasure rather than a chore, and the intake noise on every lift of the throttle keeps a passenger entertained the whole way. It handles a canyon too. It just does not need one to earn its rate.

Delivery and the Rate

The MC20 delivers to Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego, the Inland Empire and Palm Springs, and we meet arrivals at LAX, SNA, BUR, LGB, ONT, SAN and PSP. Maserati rentals run about $1,295 a day, and multi-day rates drop the daily price.

Drive a Maserati

The door goes up, you drop into the seat and swing your legs over the carbon sill, and the first thing you notice is how much you can see. The pillars are thin and the front fenders are right there, so the car feels smaller than it is. The steering is light and very quick, so the first corner comes sooner than you asked for and you learn to be gentle with your hands. The brakes feel wooden for the first few miles, then wake up. Then a road opens and you press, and the V6 pulls with a turbocharged shove while the intake makes a noise nobody warned you about, and when you lift, it whistles and whooshes behind your head like it enjoyed that as much as you did. Ride quality stays soft the whole time. It is the exotic that does not make you pay for it at the end of the day.