The team at Car Showroom gets to drive a number of new cars so it is a real credit to the all-round excellence of the MazdaCX-9 that we were heartbroken to return it.
The CX-9’s all-round excellence is especially impressive when you consider this is Mazda’s first crack at a 7-seat SUV…but given the reputation of the Japanese manufacturer should we have expected anything less?
We drove the sumptuous ‘Luxury’ model CX-9 (rrp $57,290). The other CX-9 is the ‘Classic’ model and it retails for $49,990.
Both have seven seats and are powered by Mazda’s silky-smooth 204kW 3.7-litre V6 engine driving through a six-speed automatic transmission and Mazda’s Active Torque Split all-wheel-drive system.
Other features common to both CX-9 variants include alloy wheels (20-inch on CX-9s); cruise control; 6-stack in-dash MP3 compatible CD player (with a touch screen that doubles as the monitor for the reversing camera).
Then there are the safety features standard on both models – Roll Stability Control (RSC); Dynamic Stability Control (DSC); Traction Control (TCS); anti-lock brakes (ABS) and six airbags – front, side and curtain.
Riding the wave of its Zoom-Zoom advertising proposition, Mazda claims the CX-9 offers seven seats with the soul of a sports car. After our week in the CX-9 Luxury, we can see where they’re headed with that one.
With its punchy V6 delivering 90 per cent of its peak torque of 366Nm between 2800 rpm and 5800 rpm, the slick-shifting six-speed automatic transmission doing its job smoothly and predictably plus those good-looking 20-inch wheels grabbing the bitumen, the CX-9 gets down to the business of performance motoring in no uncertain terms.
We can say with no hesitation there were many times we had to remind ourselves we were driving a 7-seat SUV. A family trip up to Melbourne’s Dandenong mountain ranges in the worst of winter weather was a real eye-opener and a compliment to the competence of Mazda’s Hiroshima-based engineering team.
Untrained eyes will work hard to notice the exterior differences between the CX-9 and its 5-seat relative the CX-7. Incredibly – and testimony to Mazda’s quest for quality – the two similar models do not share the same platform and the CX-9 is a separate development (albeit sharing the six-speed gearbox and all-wheel-drive system).
And while the North American market is the clear direction of CX-9 product planning, development, changes specific to Australia were not overlooked and include the second row seats where the 60/40 split and centre seatbelt mountings have been ‘flipped’ to ensure the interior works just as well here as those on left-hand-drive American market CX-9s (many importers overlook that detail).
And it is the working of the interior which is one of the CX-9’s most impressive points.
Mazda’s attention to detail in order to deliver a versatile and immensely practical 7-seat SUV are noticeable everywhere.
For example the rear doors open by 72 degrees to provide easy access and the seat itself slides through a range of 120mm.
Access to the third row is via one simple lever that rakes the seatback and slides the base forward – and of course the 60/40 seat split in right-hand-drive configuration allows passengers to embark from the sidewalk with comfort.
Significantly -unlike many competitive SUVs - the CX-9’s third row seat is not a ‘No-Go Zone’ for full-size adults. It is virtually a normal seat with normal leg dimensions and those passengers riding back there can easily disembark by simply releasing the second row seat with a conveniently located single lever.
Car Showroom regularly travels with our four and five year-old juniors plus their associated luggage so we were impressed that even with the third row seat in operation, the CX-9 delivered a cargo capacity of 267 litres (up to a massive 928 litres with both seat rows folded).
