Maserati Ghibli GranLusso arrives as the BMW 5 Series fighter gets a facelift

The Maserati Ghibli – Maserati’s answer to the BMW 5 Series – gets a bit of a facelift for 2018 and introduces the GranLusso badge to the Ghibli range.

It’s more than four years since the new Maserati Ghibli arrived, in the process purloining a famous Maserati badge which once adorned a stunning 1960s Grand Tourer, but had its kudos diluted when it later became the nameplate for a more prosaic follow on to the Biturbo.

Maserati’s aim with the new Ghibli was to deliver a competitor to the BMW 5 Series but with the stardust of a Maserati badge which, to a degree, they achieved, even if the decision to deliver the Ghibli with the option of a diesel engine seemed like sacrilege.

Now, four years on, the Ghibli is getting a bit of a facelift. And it is just a bit of a facelift.

There’s a restyled font bumper with added chrome, the grille now looks a bit more like that on the Levante, there’s some new badging and the back bumper gets a tweak or two. And that’s about it, apart from some Adaptive LED headlights.

The ‘big’ news is the arrival of the Maserati Ghibli GranLusso, although we can’t actually work out whether all Ghiblis are now called GranLusso or whether it’s a move to deliver two versions of the Ghibli.

Until now, the Ghibli has just been the Ghibli, and your options were a choice of Diesel, V6 Petrol or V6 Petrol S.

But the Quattraporte comes with a couple of trim options – the GranLusso and GranSport – so we wonder if this is Maserati’s intention with the Ghibli?

No doubt we’ll find out soon enough, although the press release is as clear as mud.