Mazda CX-30 Ltd: Chocks away in best-dressed baby

A flying visit allows new smooth to meet vintage industrial

Base Price:  $50,990
Powertrain and performance:  SkyActiv-G 2.5-litre four cylinder DOHC petrol engine with i-Stop and cylinder deactivation, 139kW/6000rpm, 252kW/4000rpm. All-wheel drive. 6.8 L/100km.
Vital statistics: Length 4395mm, height 1540mm, width 1795mm, wheelbase 2655mm. Luggage 430 litres. Wheels: 18-inch alloys with 215/55 R168 tyres.
We Like: Very attractive styling, sophisticated level of specification, secure and safe drive.
We don’t like: Slightly lumpy ride at the lower speeds. It’s not a coupe, Mazda.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder – a phrase that came to mind during this stint with Mazda’s swish new compact SUV, the CX-30.

That’s because we used the vehicle to head to Tauranga and introduce it to a machine 77 years its senior – a Boeing Stearman biplane.

When we parked the smooth Mazda in front of the more industrial American aircraft, the contrast between the two was starkly apparent, because one was streamlined to the extreme, while the other was definitely not.

Of course they are totally differences pieces of transport technology in that one is a new-age motor vehicle and the other is a vintage aircraft, but they are both the result of industrial design excellence of the day.

And visually, they are both highly attractive.

Maybe you ask: How can a 1943 biplane, with its big undercarriage, wings made of wood and fabric that are joined together using struts and wire, and which is powered by a nine-cylinder radial engine that burns through 46 litres of fuel and up to three litres of oil an hour, be considered attractive?

Well…- it just is, that’s how. With its bright yellow wings, silver fuselage and red tail (the US Navy painted them those colours so they were easier to spot whenever one crashed), the Stearman is one of those aircraft that simply looks like it is meant to fly.

And it did too – in its thousands. More than 10,000 of them were built in the 1930s and 1940s as primary trainers, and following the end of World War II a large number were sold on the civilian market for recreational flying. As a result there are a number of them in New Zealand, this example operated by Classic Flyers New Zealand.

Mind you, it has to be said that the Stearman doesn’t offer particularly comfortable flying. It’s interior is spartan to the extreme. An open cockpit means the environment is noisy and windy. When taxiing forward visibility is so limited the pilot has to weave from side-to-side to see where to go.

But once the biplane is in the air, the experience is a joy. As the aircraft trundles along at not much more than New Zealand’s open road speed limit, you appreciate the fact that the Stearman was designed and built for a purpose. As a primary trainer, introducing thousands of young pilots to the world of aviation.

And that makes you wonder if these days, with so many vehicles registered for use on New Zealand’s roads that we have among the world’s highest car ownership statistics, can motoring also still be a joyful experience?

Mazda certainly thinks so. It believes it is still possible for an emotional bond to be created between car and driver. It’s all to do with personal freedom, travel, and the appeal of actually being behind the wheel of a car.

As a result, the Hiroshima-headquartered company aims for autonomous technologies to support, not replace, the driver. While other carmakers might be heading towards ‘machine-centric’ automation, Mazda takes what it calls a ‘human-centric’ position by developing all sorts of electronic aids that are there to help, not dominate.

All of that is the reasoning behind a vehicle design philosophy the company calls Kodo – Soul of Motion.  Call it marketing hype if you will, but it’s a fact that in recent years this philosophy has resulted in creation of some outstanding vehicles.

The latest is this new CX-30. In essence this vehicle is the SUV version of the new Mazda3 hatch. As such it plonks itself into a gap on Mazda’s SUV fleet between the smaller CX-3 and the larger CX-5.

That gap needed to be filled, too. The new vehicle enters a market segment officially known as SUV Compact, which is growing so quickly it is due to take over from SUV Medium as New Zealand’s most popular vehicle segment.

As at the end of April both these segments held a 19 percent market share. But in April itself – albeit a very bad sales month due to the Covid-19 shutdown – SUV Compact claimed a massive 26 percent market share, while SUV Medium held 14 percent.

CX-30 cabin rather more comfortable than Stearman’s …. .but comes second-best for all-round visibility.

The CX-30 has been designed using the Kodo principle, and as a result it has perhaps the best exterior simplicity of form of any of the compact SUVs currently available in this country. In stark contrast to the old Stearman biplane which could hardly be described as streamlined, this Mazda is very smooth to the eye.

It offers a smooth drive, too. Our model for test was the top CX-30, a $50,990 2.5-litre Limited. That’s quite a bit of money for a compact SUV, but it does  carry a lot of kit, particularly from a safety perspective – including Mazda’s i–Activ electronic all-wheel drive system, and a wealth of passive and active driving aids.

These include lane-keep assist, active cruise control, blind-spot monitoring, front and rear cross traffic alert, and active emergency braking that recognises cyclists and pedestrians.  Little wonder then that all this has contributed to the CX-30 being awarded a five-star Ancap rating which included a 99% score for adult occupant protection, the highest ever recorded.

Powering the CX-30 Limited is Mazda’s 2.5-litre SkyActiv-G engine that a lot of New Zealanders have already experienced aboard such product as the CX-5, Mazda3 and Mazda6. In this application it offers 139 kilowatts of power and 252 Newton metres of torque which is ample for a vehicle of this size.

Mazda’s SkyActiv technology has been developed with economy in mind, and as such the 2.5-litre engine features an i-stop system which automatically stops the engine running at places such as the traffic lights, and cylinder deactivation which runs the vehicle on two cylinders when circumstances permit.

All this helps the CX-30 boast an official fuel consumption of 6.8 L/100km – which seems a bit low to me. I rate myself as a careful driver and I couldn’t get better than 8 L/100km. But still, it has to be said even that is very good for a vehicle that is all-wheel-drive.

The CX-30 sits about 45mm higher than a Mazda3, but despite that higher ride the vehicle still offers a secure ride. This is helped along by Mazda’s G-Vectoring Control Plus system that helps make cornering as smooth and comfortable as possible by tweaking engine torque and gently braking the outer front wheel.

The vehicle is also shod with a new concept tyre which has smaller sidewalls and a more rigid tread, which Mazda claims helps give a smoother ride because the tyre distorts less when hitting a bump.

A feature of the new CX-30 is its interior, which is very good. It’s slightly different in design to the Mazda3’s, but offers the same level of specification, including an Active Driving Display with a wide-screen centre display, and a rotary Commander Control on the centre console.

At the Limited specification level the vehicle has a black cabin theme that includes black leather seat trim, which is pretty much the same as that aboard the hatch/sedan.

All in all, the new Mazda CX-30 appeals as an outstanding new entry in the compact SUV market, and it should immediately play a major role in taking that market segment to the lead in the new vehicle sales statistics.

The MMNZ marketing people are advertising the vehicle as combining coupe styling with SUV practicality. I wouldn’t go quite that far, even though the CX-30 definitely appeals as a very good-looking vehicle.

 That’s especially the case when you park it alongside something as lumpy as an old WWII biplane. But then again, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, huh?

MX-5 RF: Brilliant, but original recipe still works best

Doing the same thing better each time might seem a lazy approach to car design, yet it’s clearly an ace idea for the world’s most-loved small sports car.

Base price: $53,745.
Powertrain and performance: 2.0-litre petrol four, 135kW/205Nm, 6-speed manual, RWD, Combined economy 7.2 litres per 100km.
Vital statistics: 3915mm long, 1235mm high, 2310mm wheelbase, luggage capacity 127 litres, 17-inch alloys.
We like: Engine has a touch more character, chassis charisma, steering column adjust. We don't like: Ummmm … okay, the MZT infotainment’s a bit rubbish, it could do with a digital speedo readout, I prefer a full convertible.

INCREDIBLE to think that it was way back in 1989 when Mazda gave us a brilliant two-seater roadster.

The MX-5 has been charming drivers around the world ever since – holding station as an unbeatable budget benchmark.

That good? Okay, my view is coloured. Cards on the table: We own two 1990 examples for Sunday drives – one for fun roads, the other for circuit racing.

Those NA cars are a world apart from the current ND is respect to safety and comfort features. No AEB, pedestrian detection, driver attention alert and traffic sign recognition then. No ABS or airbags, either. 

Driving-wise, though, there’s still a high degree of commonality. They say the trouble with coming up for a brilliant idea for a car is that, once you’ve achieved it, you’ve got to keep doing it. Slip from an NA to the ND - via the NB and NC if you prefer the full route – and there’s a sense of satisfying sameness.

In saying that, there’s so much about the current car that has gone back to original form. It’s light – down to meeting the 1000kg weight target set for the first model (and slightly ignored by the next two) – not too complicated, nimble and incisive. 

The only decision with this latest edition is whether to stick with the original format roadster or spend a bit extra for the RF retractable hardtop. 

The latter is the cleverest of things. At the touch of a button it’s a coupe one moment, a roadster the next.

There’s one caveat. You’ve got to be the right size. Which isn’t me. I’m a touch too talk and, well, perhaps a bit too bulky as well. Even so, slipping from an original to the update suggested the cabin’s become a bit more conveniently-shaped for my kind. The seat design has slimmed but is also better shaped for larger bods, the chair slips back perhaps a couple more millimetres on the rail. And maybe something’s gone on with pedal placement, because I’m sure the footwell is more accepting of my size 12s, too.

So it’s better. Yet I’m still niggled by what the RF does to the car’s lines. As much as the roof is an exquisite example of the quality of design and engineering excellence that has become a type hallmark, and although it adds but 50kg to the scales, the visual ‘weight’ is too much of a load to my eyes. 

I’d just add, though, this is more an observation than a criticism because I reckon weighing up MX-5 pros and cons needs to be a measurement of degrees of excellence. One-eyed? Utterly. Yet it just doesn’t seem fair to bag a car designed, purely, for fun behind the wheel on such trivial grounds.

The fact that the buttresses cause a blind spot and trigger an annoying wind buffet exactly behind my right year didn’t put me off driving this car. 

Actually, enthusiasm ran hotter because of the major change affecting this refresh. Mazda has given the MX-5 a new engine - well, not totally new. It's the 2.0-litre SkyActiv-G petrol engine, but with 17kW extra horsepower liberated, plus 5Nm extra torque, and the whole thing has become revvier, with a new redline of 7500rpm, up from 6800rpm.

The extra oomph is insufficient to reset time pieces by any particular margin but I’d suggest that will not be of any particular issue to true fans. One of the positives of the MX-5 is that it has never been over-burdened by outright grunt. It’s an intentional element as the overall ethos is for this to be a car that purposely asks drivers to commit. Anyone with lazy habits will never get the best from it. The pleasure of this update is that it makes requirement to attune to its needs all more enticing, as the powertrain feels zestier and is plainly revvier – right up to the redline, in fact. 

There’s potentially still one MX-5 that’s a touch better, and that’s the one in Italian fashionwear. The Fiat-finished Abarth is often overlooked, but shouldn’t be. Its 1.4-litre turbocharged engine is still a bit more instant than the Mazda 2.0-litre and the Italian job’s exhaust note has more barp. Yet I’d say the MX-5, now, is a better car to throw at a challenging road; the engine is finally truly willing to rev out to its redline and is perfectly attuned to the superbly-calibrated six-speed manual.

The most obvious specification change is addition of a reversing camera embedded into the centre rear of the car, just below the bootlid and displaying via the 7.0-inch MZD Connect infotainment screen and the most significant tweak is, for the first time, reach adjustment for the steering. Plus it gets improved cupholders. But it fails to achieve the Apple CarPlay update.

But, anyway, you’re buying it for the driving experience and, on that note, it’s brilliant. But I would say that, right?

To be fair, so do a lot of my colleagues, and I think I know why: Professional pride.

This car can claim three ‘fathers’: Kenichi Yamamoto, the man who'd made the rotary engine work, and Gai Arai respectively headed Mazda’s engineering and research and development operations when their firm decided to create a small affordable sports car.

The initial options were either a front-drive platform, based on the 323 hatchback, or a mid-engined car to rival the Toyota MR2.

The concept of a third alternate, was raised by an American, who’d befriended Yamamoto on a student exchange years before. 

Bob Hall, on hearing what the company was up to, got in touch with his pal and suggested a modern-day Lotus Elan. 

The idea stuck. The rest is history. 

Hall, by the way, wasn't an engineer. He was an automotive writer, employed by America’s Motor Trend but also penning for Australia’s Wheels.

So basically, that’s why writers love this car. It would be professional discourtesy not to.