Car Review: Mazda 6

A fine sports saloon that shouldn’t be overlooked

Like good and bad manners, good styling costs no more than bad styling, and the Mazda 6 demonstrates how a small player can carve out a niche for itself (Mazda)

The thing I liked most about the Mazda 6 is its great big front wings. They’re gorgeous, aren’t they? Really they are. I admire the way the curve flows into the front door, and then picks up again to sweep back towards the rear haunches. It has quite a 1950s feel to it, in a good way, like a proper sports saloon from the glory days of the British motor industry. The overall proportions are as well-balanced and distinctive as anything out there, and I approve too of the way Mazda has looked back to its 1970s models to resurrect that bold grille for its saloons. Mazda claims that its new shade of “Soul Red” is designed to make the sinuous lines of the Mazda look their best. The car makers call it “kodo” – meaning “soul of motion”.

I can’t really put it more pretentiously than that, though Mazda is very happy to supply some flowery prose to explain of what it was up to in the styling den: “It embodies the dynamic beauty of life. This can be felt both inside and out, transferring the energy of movement to those who see it and creating an irresistible urge to drive.” Well, yes. I did quite like the idea of finding out of it was as good to drive as it is to look at. Maybe that’s why you see quite a few of these Mazdas around.

Not so long ago I had the pleasure of meeting Mazda’s designers, including some of the clay modellers who work so hard by hand to get the human touch, literally, into the curves of vehicles that are the product of software as well as soft clay (a synthetic malleable plastic these days, by the way, not real clays). Mazda, a smaller and less well-funded company than its bigger Japanese-based rivals such as Toyota (with which it now has a commercial partnership and cross shareholding), has to be smarter about how it spends its money and sells its cars. Like good and bad manners, good styling costs no more than bad styling, and the Mazda 6 demonstrates how a small player can carve out a niche for itself in a market place that has never been more competitive. Up against everything from a Ford Mondeo and Vauxhall Insignia to the Audi A4 and BMW 3-series, not to mention the current craze for SUVs, why would anyone want a boring saloon from an also-ran brand? Well, this “dad car” is anything but boring to drive.

The Mazda 6 is as good to drive as it is to look at (Mazda)

The petrol unit I tried (there are also diesel options) is a very light, extremely free-revving wieldy sort of machine (all the way to about 7,000 rpm if you can take it), which rewards the enthusiastic plot with strong performance and excellent handling. The doors, for example, feel lighter than most to close, the all-alloy engine and attention to weight reduction throughout make it feel as swift as it looks, and this is most of the reason why it is so responsive. Braking is assured and it never scrabbles for grip. Like Honda and Suzuki, also relatively small Japanese-based players with engineers running the businesses, Mazda places a good deal of emphasis on honing its moving parts, and it is this that delivers its customers their fun.

Mazda 6 Sport Nav

Price: £27,075 (range starts at £19,995)

Engine capacity: 2litre petrol 4cyl, 6-speed manual

Power output (ps @ rpm): 165@6,000

Top speed (mph): 134

0-60mph (seconds):  6.4

Fuel economy (mpg): 47.9

Co2 emissions (g/km):  135

RFL band: E

BIK%:  24

I suspect that most of the Mazda 6’s drivers will be spending a good deal of time on the motorway and, with the right kit, the car is as well suited as any of its competitors to such work: with the right options you get adaptive cruise control, lane assist (which takes the effort out of steering), emergency braking, plus a heads-up display that puts essentials such as speed and speed limits right into your eyeline, as if floating in the middle distance. There are heated seats and, most welcome, a heated steering wheel (I am spoiled enough to say that it was a bit tepid, however). None of this is new, but not so long ago you could only find this sort of technology on a range-topper such as a Mercedes-Benz S-Class, say. It is a small but important lesson in the consumer benefits of capitalist competition.

Heated steering wheel is good – interior plastics not so much (Mazda)

The Mazda 6 has some faults. The screen for the sat nav, audio and heating seems mean by current standards, say from the likes of Peugeot Citroen, and screen inflation is one of the big trends in car design right now, and as I say the poor old Mazda is way behind on that. Worse still, the “touch” screen proved unmoved by my touch, and the alternative, using a sort of dial/mouse device situated between the front seats, works as badly as it does on an Audi. So poor marks for that side of things, which is a shame.

The interior plastics are just a tiny bit below the premium sort of look and feel that they could be, and I’d still be a little concerned about the long-term durability of the car, as this hasn’t always been a strong point for Mazdas (bodywork rather than the mechanical bits, that is).

Mazda claim that its new shade of ‘Soul Red’ is designed to make the sinuous lines of the Mazda look their best (Mazda)

The main problem with the Mazda 6, from a consumer angle, is that there’s no hatchback option, just the saloon and an estate version. Generally, the market for this type of car, the conventional “three-box” saloon, is shrinking, assailed from the craze for SUVs and SUV-saloon hybrids, and with mainstream brands such as Mazda having to cope with ever fiercer challenges from the premium makes such as Audi and BMW (and that includes their SUVs, of course). Makes such as Nissan, Honda and Renault have pretty much given up the fight, but Mazda deserves the credit for reminding the public that a well-engineered, stylish and reliable machine can offer the same practicality and room as an SUV, but which can be handled like a sports car. For those reasons, and some pretty competitive pricing, and just for making an interesting car and injecting some excitement into the auto ecosystem, the Mazda 6 deserves its success.