Queen's Verdict
Maserati GranCabrio: the four-seat serenade
Maserati's open-top grand tourer arrives with four real seats and one blue-and-ivory mission: turn every drive into a shared occasion. The court is charmed, and immediately books a coast road.
Mon 20 July 2026 · Queen of Cars
“A four-seat serenade in blue and ivory - wonderful already, and merely awaiting a fully occupied coast-road hearing before higher honours.”
An audience at Maserati Sydney
Some cars you review. Others grant you an audience. The GranCabrio the court met at Maserati Sydney wore a deep blue that behaved like evening wear, and when we leaned in for a closer look she answered with an ivory interior, each headrest carrying a trident stitched into it like a family crest. Four real seats. An open roof. That is the whole manifesto, right there, before anyone has touched a key.
The grand tour, plural
Maserati has been building grand tourers since before the phrase needed explaining, and the GranCabrio is that inheritance with the ceiling politely removed. The twin-turbo V6 up front is the same operatic heart as the GranTurismo's, and with the roof down it performs in the round.
But the headline is the seating chart. Open-top glamour usually travels in pairs; the GranCabrio brings four proper chairs for four proper humans, which turns every drive from a duet into a dinner party. She is built on the radical idea that a sunset is better shared and that arrival should be a group activity. Long, low, unhurried in her manners and very hurried indeed when asked, she costs serious money, because so does everything else that makes strangers wave at you.
And Sydney will suit her: harbour light on that blue paint, ivory cabin glowing, a coastline that photographs like it is auditioning. If any city was drawn up for a four-seat convertible, it is this one.
Three crowns and a sun hat
So why three crowns and not four? Not for any failing, Your Majesty, but for procedure. The court hereby awards three crowns and a sun hat, on the firm principle that a car this sociable cannot receive her final judgment in a showroom, however flattering the lighting. A machine with four real seats and no roof has earned the right to be assessed properly, on a coast road, with every seat occupied, before higher honours are so much as discussed. Consider the remaining crowns not withheld but reserved, like a good table. In the meantime the GranCabrio did everything a stationary siren can do: she made four members of the court start planning an imaginary long weekend on the spot. Wonderful, then, pending sunshine.
The court rises, adjusts its sun hat, and begins drawing lots for the back seats.
Your car texts you now.
Pet names, painted portraits, rego reminders as messages from the car herself - and never a scrap of your data. The Royal Garage, our iOS app.
Meet the app