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You have to admire the chutzpah of Mazda. The tenacity. The daring.

Here’s a company that burned its hand on Amati, was bedded and abused by Ford, and has set its sights on achieving its dreams since it became single again.

If anything defines their upmarket aspirations and global thinking it’s the CX5. Refined, right sized, and a super happy fun ball on a mountain road.

But the CX5 requires time and patience to understand. It doesn’t shine on a test drive, doesn’t make a great elevator pitch on the showroom floor.

The rear seat is snug, the chassis requires you be comfortable with roll and weight transfer, and the car as a whole demands you prescribe to the less is more approach that is oh so Mazda from the MX5 on down – or is that up?

You see Mazda’s upmarket ambitions elsewhere in the line too. The CX30 and 3’s interior, for example. In the deft tuning of every control and switch. Unfortunately those ambitions have gone unnoticed and unappreciated as buyers click their tongues on snug rear seats and lower horsepower ratings.

The CX50 is a very different approach. Feels more like a step sibling. One raised in a different home. Rather than trying to be refined and polite and genteel like the CX5 or 3, or playful like a CX30 or MX5, the CX50 seems to want to be more like the best sellers to fleets and families.

You can see some hints of domestic in its design cues. And clearly the CX50 is laid out to be more competitive in the US: stretched for more stretch out room, widened for less roll in the corners.

What it is is a wagon, elevated, in the vein of the Subaru Outback, but before Subaru turned the Outback into the very thing it was meant to be an alternative to: a clumsy and caricatured beast of burden.

Problem is, the CX50 comes across as a bit of a caricature itself.

Rather than try to nuance its way into your heart, the CX50 gives America what it wants: flat cornering, turbo torque, elbow and leg room, and a tough and rugged appearance. You won’t find the interior materials you’ve come to expect from Mazda here, nor will you find the fluidity in the ride and handling. The CX50 has a chip on its shoulder, and desperate to shed its nice guy image.

It feels more like a Subaru in another way: like decisions were made by a focus group or in a PowerPoint deck. There’s less cohesion and integration than you find in the aforementioned Mazdas. The controls feel like they’ve been plucked from different cars rather than honed for the same one. The ridge wriggles and jiggles as though to remind you it’s a tough and macho SUV. But really, like that Outback is better as a Legacy, there’s a sense the CX50 will grow its sales for the same reasons it’s stunted as a product. By targeting the base desires of the journalist looking for front end grip or the shopper punching it out of the parking lot it ends up feeling like product Mazda committed to for America. Which is fine; it’s been too long since they bothered to think about what America really wants. The CX5 has been a runaway sales success despite its size, not because of it.

But me? I’m far more excited about the upcoming CX60 and CX70. While the CX30 and CX50 feel like stopgaps thrown together to appeal to market trend, signs are strong that the CX60 and CX70 will finally fulfill Mazda’s destiny to compete with the premium makes. And for space in garages that are tired of the premium makes resting on their laurels.

So when you’re shopping for a crossover, especially one from Mazda, or reading a review of the same, you’d do well to ask yourself: “Do I want hi-fi, or something that isn’t as accurate but gets the party dancing?”

The CX50 may not just feel right, but it’s probably right on target for what people want right now: a wagon that disguises its wagon- ness enough to be taken seriously, and more fashionably that any wagon would have been. We’ve been crying out for a Mazda 6 wagon, and like it or not the CX50 is as close as America deserves or is going to get.

Now if you’ll excuse me I’ll be over here listening to my high – fi, waiting a bit longer for the CX60 to arrive.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 6th, 2022 at 4:15 pm and is filed under Mazda, SUVs, errata.