If there’s one thing Aussies love, it’s an SUV with a Mazda badge

Mazda has outdone Toyota and even Hyundai in taking the upper ends of its range to a more premium, luxurious place without the need for an offshoot-brand marketing effort.

Mazda’s imposing CX range of SUVs. Picture: Supplied

Inviting motoring journalists to an art exhibition is like bringing a pig with a drinking problem into a fine-dining establishment and allowing it to snuffle the table. Despite this, Mazda invited a herd of us to the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra for an exclusive preview of Gauguin’sWorld, combined with a swine ’n’ dine experience and the world premiere of its own imposing CX range of SUVs.

When one of my colleagues whispered that he’d never heard of this Paul Gauguin fellow, and asked whether he’d ever raced at Le Mans, I couldn’t resist sounding slightly superior. So I explained to him that the great Gauguin was famous for having bitten off Van Gogh’s ear in a brutal cage fight, that he was later arrested in Tahiti after it was revealed that he’d murdered everyone who modelled for him, and that he was tragically allergic to sand. And oxygen. Highly impressed, my unlearned friend declared himself a fan of a particular Gauguin sculpture – only for me to point out that he was staring at an umbrella holder.

To be fair, he’d spent a lot more time than I did outside, where the Mazdas CX-60, CX-70, CX-80 and CX-90 were lined up for a game of spot the difference. This was the first time the four have been shown in public together (the five-seat CX-60 and six/seven-seat CX90 are already on sale, the other two are coming) anywhere, and Australia will soon be the only market globally to offer this surfeit of SUVs.

Other countries seem to feel that enough is enough already – the CX-70 and CX-80 are very similar versions of the other two, essentially – but the only thing Australians love more than an SUV is one with a Mazda badge on it, which is why we are very close to being the brand’s best market. And the company spokespeople reckon there’s no such thing as too much choice, a point proven by how many TV streaming services I have.

This notion of choice was much on my mind the next day as I took a new CX-90 D50e Touring for a drive down multiple memory lanes in the turgid town where I grew up. People have a huge choices of places to live, and yet so many of them still live in Canberra. Fittingly, I learned to drive here in a Mazda 626, back when that was a family car. I have liked Mazdas ever since, but aside from the obviously desirable MX-5 it’s the 3 and the 6 that I’ve always rated most highly.

Much like the vast CX-90, which has doors that could double as cinema screens, Canberra has grown in ways that I find shocking and unsettling. I visited two of my old schools and found they had doubled or tripled in size (more shockingly, no one has put up a plaque with my name on it). Yet conversely, it seemed a shrink ray had been fired at my old house.

What was most alarming, however, was the staggering size and number of shopping centres. Canberrans, perhaps because they are cold, love a mall, and I do fear that one day the multitude of them will join up and the whole city will be just one giant retail experience surrounding Parliament House.

Finally, I did manage to get out of town to the wondrous winding roads where I learned to love driving, and discovered that Mazda has outdone Toyota (via Lexus) and even Hyundai (with its Genesis brand) in taking the upper ends of its range to a more premium, luxurious place without the need for an offshoot-brand marketing effort.

My $76,550 CX-90 had soft, plush surfaces where you want them – next to your left knee for example – and sturdy, solidly stitched ones where you can appreciate them. It can also hold a line through bends in a way that’s surprising when you remember just how much SUV you’re driving.

Inside the Mazda CX90.

I had to turn the Lane Keep Assist off, because it’s too loud, and I still find the brand’s insistence on not letting you touch its touchscreen infuriating (you have to use a mouse-style controller). Also, the steering is just a little too easy-going for my liking. But for most people I think this big seven-seat SUV would over-deliver on expectations.

For most people, the Mazda CX90 would over-deliver on expectations.

I certainly wouldn’t buy this diesel version, though, despite the easy torque from its 3.3-litre engine – not because of the noises it makes (they’ve actually done a good job of masking any tractor-like rattles) but because I’m one of those mad, bearded lefty types who thinks diesel is the Devil’s diarrhoea and should be banned.

Fortunately, you can also get a CX-90 with a straight-six petrol engine, which, with 254kW and 500Nm, just happens to be the most powerful engine Mazda has ever made, and is thus my preferred choice; it starts at $74,550. Yes, that did seem a lot to me, at first, but then I heard that the paintings in the Gauguin exhibition were valued at multiple billions of dollars (has no one noticed that he can’t paint horses properly?) and all other numbers suddenly seemed quite reasonable.

Mazda CX-90 D50e Touring

ENGINE: 3.3-litre six-cylinder diesel (187kW, 550Nm)

FUEL ECONOMY: 5.4 litres per 100km

TRANSMISSION: Eight-speed automatic, all-wheel drive

PRICE: $76,550

RATING: 3.5/5