Mazda CX-30 review: winning formula

Cars are undergoing such profound changes that one day the industry will wake up and realise it’s producing something else entirely.

The Mazda CX30 Picture: Mazda

Cars are undergoing such profound changes that one day the industry will wake up and realise it’s producing something else entirely. Vehicles have already morphed into phones-on-wheels, making them a bit less loveable as a result – even if the batteries do last longer, along with the warranties. But it goes wider than that. These days, every brand wants to be a “mobility services provider” and control your journey from beginning to end. It’s the goal of all the activity around autonomy, clever infrastructure and so on.

The results, whatever they are, aren’t cars. They’re electric pods, devoid of character and stripped of excitement. And crucially, they lack a car’s USP, namely: going where you want, when you want, on your own if you like and with room for Ikea flatpacks, if required. They are minibuses by another name and we already have those. Only in future, it seems, they’ll look like motorised suppositories.

As many of the big names enter their second centuries perhaps it’s a timely reminder that plenty of car companies started out doing something else. Lamborghini began with tractors, Peugeot produced pepper grinders and Opel made sewing machines. But the prize for most unlikely transition must surely go to Mazda. It began, a century ago this year, making corks. That was clearly not its metier. Decades before the screw-top, it made a hash of corks and after being bailed out, turned its hand to vehicles. Starting with an auto rickshaw.

Mazda has moved on, although by today’s standards it’s unfeasibly tiny, producing just 1.5m vehicles a year. Uniquely, Australia has an outsize appetite for them and five years ago Mazda overtook Holden to become our second favourite brand. That was largely down to the Mazda 3 hatchback/sedan, which had usurped Holden’s Commodore in our affections. Since then, though, the Mazda 3 has itself been toppled by the SUV onslaught, including Mazda’s own CX-5.

So now, like everyone else, Mazda can’t roll out SUVs fast enough and taking its line-up to five is the new CX-30. It aims to hook buyers defecting from the Mazda 3 and slots in between the CX-3 tiddler and CX-5 on pretty much every dimension.

Apparently, buyers aren’t curious about naming strategies but if you’re wondering why it isn’t called the CX-4, it’s because Mazda already has one. It’s a China-only model that won’t be coming here.

Mazda CX-30

Another reason might be the debt the CX-30 owes to the 3 itself. It sits on the same underpinnings, with the same hatchback suspension, four-cylinder engines and six-speed automatic transmission (but no manual option). Like the 3, it comes as front or all-wheel drive. Effectively, it’s a raised and cladded version of the hatchback – something other makers would probably call a Mazda 3 Allroad. The CX-30 has a smidge more cargo space than a 3 but it’s also slightly heavier, thirstier and, of course, pricier. It starts at $29,990 – $4000 more than the entry 3 automatic – and climaxes higher, with a G25 Astina AWD for $43,490. In between are 11 other variants across four grades. Mazda believes that together the 3 and CX-30 can sell at the same rate that, until recently, the hatchback/sedan was achieving on its own.

If it succeeds it will be thanks in no small part to the car’s looks. The CX-30 continues Mazda’s run of appealing designs. During his presentation, the designer revealed some of the visual tricks involved in achieving the result – chief among them the angle of the plastic cladding along the sides and around the wheel arches. It serves to give the car a racy wedge profile and more rounded rear. With its long bonnet, sculpted sides and four-square stance, it’s a car any marketing department worthy of the name would have insisted be called the Mazda 3 Allroad Coupe.

The good news continues inside, where a variation of the architecture in the 3 brings a wing-shaped dash with high-mounted control screen, good seats and just enough space for adults in the rear. The driving position is a little higher than usual but far from commanding; in fact with a high window line and dash, you sit immersed in this car.

The control menu has Mazda’s usual straightforward logic while standard across the line-up is a welcome head-up display, reversing camera, satnav and a long safety list taking in virtually every sort of alert system you can think of.

On the road, the CX-30 is tautly set up in typical Mazda fashion. It recovers quickly from unsettling bumps and the chassis responds in a nuanced way to steering and throttle inputs, so it feels alert. As expected from a raised ride height, the body leans a bit through corners but it doesn’t lurch. The wheel size does affect the car’s dynamic qualities, with the smaller 16-inch alloys delivering better cushioning than the 18-inchers. The steering felt more linear and less darty, too.

Shopping at the lower end of the range also makes sense from an engine standpoint. The 2.5 litre is substantially quicker off the mark, at 8.7s to 100km/h against 10.2s for the smaller unit. It is also less taxing on the ears under load. The 2.0-litre can struggle to get going from standstill on an incline. However, neither unit is built for Formula 1 and the 114kW of power in the 2.0-litre responds convincingly once you’re on the move. For most, it will be enough.

So if you’re about to reject the Mazda 3 because it isn’t an SUV, the company now has an answer. The CX-30 may not be the most convincing SUV – it’s a jacked-up hatchback, really – but at least it’s still recognisably a car.

Fast facts Mazda CX-30

 Engine: 2.0-litre petrol four-cylinder (114kW/200Nm); 2.5-litre petrol four-cylinder (139kW/252Nm).

Average fuel: from 6.5 litres per 100km

Transmission: Six-speed automatic, front or all-wheel drive

Price: From $29,990

Rating: ★★★½