New Mazda6 has elite car subtleties
Is it a BMW? Is it a Lexus? Well, no it’s not. It’s a Mazda. But they were the questions asked by the first two people to, separately, see the new Mazda6 when we took it for our photoshoots. Which confirmed that the designers at Mazda had done what they set out to do, because BMW was their benchmark when they set out to develop this successor to the 626.
The Mazda6 has just gone on sale in Ireland, in a price range that starts at 24,640 euros and sets Mazda firmly back in the races against the likes of Ford’s Mondeo, Opel’s Vectra, Renault’s Laguna II and Nissan’s Primera. Though with an engines offering beginning with a 1.8-litre and going up to 2.3-litre petrol, plus a pair of diesels, it is more seriously lined out against the first two in that list.
Essentially, it is the car which Mazda is expecting will save it. Along with a couple of brand new cars in smaller segments, due to come on stream next year, the 6 is the frontline warrior in a brutally competitive business, and in its segment elite brands like Mercedes and BMW are also making increasing inroads.
Our ‘first view’ car In Ireland was the 2-litre Exclusive specification saloon, which comes into the lists at 30,650 euros. The engine is one of three completely new engines for Mazda, all-aluminium, and pushes out a creditable 141bhp which allows a 0-100kmh in well under 10secs.
The first view which another driver will likely see is in the side mirror, of a very distinctive and increasingly familiar Mazda grille style, incorporating a wide chromed top, and centering a strongly sculpted front bumper. The headlight clusters are wide and low, with a plethora of ‘we mean business’ lighting tubes.
The lines of the car are subtly-haunched, with echoes of perhaps the nicest-ever Mazda design, the Xedos 6, allied to the cues which elicited those questions from our ‘first viewers’ on the photoshoots.
The stance of the 6 is wider than the car it replaces, though the actual mirror-to-mirror edges are the same. So there’s a very purposeful look about the new car, which manages also to appear to be quite low to the ground. Indeed, depending on the colour, it seems more compact than some of its competitors, but interior room is significantly better than the old 626, in shoulders, legroom and headroom.
The big test is whether I (Brian) can ‘fit behind myself’, and when I set the driver’s seat to my needs, there was more than ample room for me behind. Notably compared to the 626, there is plenty of headroom for rear passengers of any height up to mine, and probably beyond.
From the driver’s perspective, there’s an uncompromising leap out of the conformity which represents the class, and which the predecessor car represented in itself. A fully ‘titaniumised’ centre stack is bluntly sporty, with the incorporated and very integrated controls for sound system, climate control and miscellaneous uses such as the hazard flasher styled and sized to seem very much a part of the design.
And on the ergonomics of these controls, there’s no mucking around with arrows and other gimmicks to change settings - nice big round twisters for volume control and even radio tuning are what many of us have been shouting for. They feel good to use too.
The car we drove today included remote radio controls on the steering wheel, again well indicated and instinctive to learn, as well as cruise controls with similar positives. The wheel itself feels smaller than some, but didn’t obscure anything on the instrument panel behind it. The two main dials are large and chrome-rimmed, white figures on a black background. I think I’d prefer if the figures were NOT italicised, but that’s a matter of individual likes and dislikes.
As for stowage, up front there’s an extra lidded compartment on top of the centre dash, ideal for holding a small camera, mobile phone ‘off the person’, and cigarettes if one is still so foolish. A lidded area between the seats opened to show a brace of cupholders, while under the elbow rest is a very deep stowage box. At the end, the boot is long, fairly wide, and while not the highest we’ve seen it seems more than ample for most luggage requirements.
(Don’t know about the golf clubs: we didn’t have a set handy.)
We had the car for just a morning, not a real test, but enough to gain a feel for it. The first impression, though, has to relate to the seats, which I thought are rather better than the usual in the class in terms of how they hold one. We’ll wait until there’s time for a couple of long trips to come back on that.
On the road, there were other immediate impressions: the smooth action of the clutch and the precision of the gearshifter made themselves very noticeable. So too did the wide-profile tyres on the version, which made the parking speeds steering slightly heavy. Moving faster, that steering lightened quickly, and might be too light for some - a Mazda trait, given that its products are popular in the US - but there are a couple of wind-up bends around our area through which it drove us very precisely.
The 2-litre mill has a bit of a buzz about it when you wind it up. Kinda nice, really. Road and wind noise were notable by their absence, and those tyres which could also have been noisy on our roads were in fact not so.
In the time we had, the suspension on a particularly testing stretch between Kilcullen and Naas felt well in control of things, and earlier it had taken the ‘ramp test’ with a fair degree of aplomb. Again, more comment when we’ve had more time in the car.
On first view, the Mazda6 is a satisfying car to drive. When all 29 versions are here, there will be a saloon, hatchback (later this month) and sportwagon (in August, we believe, along with the diesel engines).
There are likely to be a fair few of them about. Because there are as yet no press evaluation Mazda6s available in Ireland, we’re indebted to Newbridge Mazda dealer Ray O’Brien for a loan of the car we’ve just written about. He already feels that his dealership ‘won’t be selling the car’ but that ‘customers will be buying it’. A subtle difference.
Like the subtleties in the styling that make people ask if it’s a BMW or a Lexus.
We wait with some enthusiasm for a proper evaluation opportunity. In the meantime, full details of versions, engines, and performance will be covered in the upcoming issue of Irish Car magazine.
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