The Maserati Levante is the first SUV from the luxury Italian brand, but what does its name mean?
According to Maserati, the Levante crossover is named after the “warm, Mediterranean wind that can change from mild to gale force in an instant, mirroring the character of the first Maserati SUV”.
The wind blows east across the western part of the Mediterranean Sea, and affects Spain and southern France. In English, the wind is typically written as “levant”, but in Spanish it’s written and pronounced as “levante”.
Most of us would have heard of the word levant in describing the region surrounding modern day Syria, including Cyprus, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria and parts of Turkey.
Indeed, the terrorist group that’s often to referred to as ISIS (the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) and daesh is also known ISIL (the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant).
