The Mazda 6 proves low running costs don't have to be at the expense of driving pleasure. It's a brilliant large family car, writes William Scholes
YOU may have seen the television advertisement for the new Mazda 6 during the breaks in Coronation Street or The X Factor.
In between footage of galloping wild horses, gymnasts defying gravity and tumbling waterfalls we catch glimpses of a car... we also see an earnest Japanese chap, sporting the car designer's standard issue stubble, boy band haircut and expensive glasses.
He's Ikuo Maeda, a caption tells us, and he's Mazda's head of design. He's also a man on a mission so important that no mere design studio can corral his creativity - why else would he have to stand on a rocky beach, with mountains of white surf crashing to shore beside him, to sketch a new car?
The reason for all this dynamism becomes apparent towards the end of the advert; as the viewer gets a proper look at the car Maeda-san has been working on, the clear message is that the Mazda 6's shape has been inspired by the kinetic energy and grace of the horses, waves, gymnasts and so on.
Whether any of that is true or not I don't know, though it makes a good story. Either way, Maedasan and his colleagues at Mazda have produced a properly handsome car.
The 6 doesn't have a bad angle, its sleek coupe-cum-saloon design a confection of bulging arches, confident slashes and complex shapes.
It packs presence and style and makes the cars it most directly competes with - the likes of the Volkswagen Passat and Ford Mondeo - look dull, undernourished and just a little bit sad.
Good looks will get you only so far, of course.
The Mazda has more than enough talent and intelligence to prove that its beauty is more than skin deep, even if its plus-size measurements would rule it out of taking part in a Miss Ulster pageant.
Mazda, always one of the more lateral thinkers in the industry, has subjected all of its new models to a drastic diet and efficiency regime.
Its chief weapons have been an obsessive approach to slashing weight by employing high-tech construction techniques and lightweight but stronger materials as well as imaginative new petrol and diesel engines, which among other things enjoy the benefits of some clever thinking about compression ratios.
Mazda bundles this approach under the name Skyactiv. This might sound like a new satellite television service but the net effect is deeply impressive, as it means the 6 scores class-leading CO2 and MPG figures.
The CX-5 crossover, tested in these pages earlier this year, was the first new generation Mazda to be developed under the Skyactiv philosophy.
It is a brilliant car so it is no surprise that the 6 is also fabulous, which bodes well for the soon-to-arrive new 3.
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