Maserati MC20 Debuts at Goodwood Festival of Speed
The all-new Maserati MC20 supercar has made its U.K. debut at the 27th Goodwood Festival of Speed, where it took on the famous hill climb and gave the crowd what was likely its first listen of the twin-turbo Nettuno engine.
In Detail: Closer look at the upcoming MC20 supercar
The Festival of Speed is an annual, multi-day event that’s all about celebrating cars and motorsports. Cars of all sorts, across various decades and racing divisions, are assembled and driven by amateur drivers as well as racing drivers up a 1.16-mile course.
Often times, the cars are not pushed to their limits. They are merely there as showcases, prototypes for the manufacturers to show off before the official launch date. Alternately, some of drivers at the wheel of classic cars or one-of-a-kind race cars are understandably unwilling to risk damaging the multi-million-dollar equipment. Other times, the drivers really do push the cars, setting fast times on the hill climb as they dance on the ragged edge of adhesion.
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The MC20’s run at the Goodwood Festival of Speed was somewhere in between these two extremes. Not quite an all-out run, but clearly not a leisurely Sunday drive either. Maserati says the car weighs just 3,306 pounds and can accelerate from 0-62 mph in 2.8 seconds, which wasn’t quite shown off at Goodwood. Nonetheless, the car seemed fast — and for an 8,000-rpm engine, it was surprisingly rumbly, bellowing out deep noises like a bassoon.
Turbochargers are typically a sound killer, and the MC20 has two of them, but Maserati has somehow managed to give the car an interesting exhaust note, which definitely helped it stand out at Goodwood, where many of the new supercars being introduced were noiseless electrics.
Kurt Verlin was born in France and lives in the United States. Throughout his life he was always told French was the language of romance, but it was English he fell in love with. He likes cats, music, cars, 30 Rock, Formula 1, and pretending to be a race car driver in simulators; but most of all, he just likes to write about it all. See more articles by Kurt.