If you're like me, a new entry into the crossover market is just background noise; they might be useful, and certainly it's the hottest-selling segment out there, but who really wants to read about yet another cute-ute?
Well, pay attention, because this isn't just Mazda's attempt to cash in on the CUV buying trend - it's their idea of what the future's going to look like.
What's more, it's their first salvo in the war to keep interesting cars available to the average Joe and Jane.
How so? Well, Mazda's previous effort was the boxy Tribute - aptly-named in that it seemed to be an homage to the Ford Escape.
In fact, it was basically an Escape with "Ford" crossed off and "Mazda" written on the front in crayon.
This was no bad thing, as the Escape was quite a capable little trucklet. Unfortunately, it stood out against the rest of Mazda's zoom-zoomy lineup like a pack-mule in the starting gate at Hasting Racecourse.
Alternately, you could pop for the pod-like CX-7, with a thoroughly engaging and Mazda-like driving experience.
Drawbacks? Principally, the brutal fuel-economy you got out of the 2.3L turbo engine.
Here now, is Mazda's latest effort, a crossover which purportedly zooms like the CX-7, packs all your stuff like the Tribute, and sips fuel like a mid-90s 1.6L Protege.
In a world where efficiency increasingly trumps fun-to-drive, is it good enough?
DESIGN
Take a good look at Mazda's first proper application of their new Kodo "Soul of Motion" styling. The Hiroshima-based company lost plenty of Mazda3 buyers when they went to the smiley-faced Nagare styling, so this much less swoopy treatment is a welcome return change.
It's also a return to the good-looking, conservatively styled Mazdas of the past. While the blunt front-end of the CX-5 might seem a little puggish on first glance (to tell the truth, it put me in mind of the Angry Birds mobile game), it manages to dial back the cutesy factor without going for the hyper-aggressiveness that's become the hallmark of modern design.
It's also very nicely pro-portioned from the sides, squared off and trimmed with black plastic under-cladding - most of these cars will never see anything rougher than a gravel parking lot, but at least you won't have to worry about paint chips if you're bombing along a logging road.
My GT tester came standard with 19" alloys. While these fill out the wheel-wells nicely, it has to be said that long-term intenders might want to watch for the added cost that low-profile tires in this size might add to ownership costs down the road.
ENVIRONMENT
Anyone who's owned a Mazda in the past decade won't be surprised by the interior of the CX-5. In black, it's the closest thing to VW-style German spartan feel that you'll get from a Japanese manufacturer.
Eschewing the split-binnacles of other, "stylier" CUVs, the CX-5 is extremely conservative in its layout, a single strip of piano-black trim running across the dash to brighten things up a little.
Quite frankly, it's a welcome change from the interior design experiments of some of the other players out there - the CX-5 feels like it won't look dated in six or seven year's time, and the build-quality gives the impression that it won't have gone all rattly either.
New parents who are shopping around because their ginormous rear-facing child seat no longer fits in the clapped-out compact they've had since college will find plenty of rear-seat space. Even better, the CX-5 has 40/20/40 split-folding rear seats, making for a very flexible cargo area.
PERFORMANCE
With just 155hp on tap to move 3400lbs of all-wheel-drive, automatic cross-over around, you'd hardly think the CX-5 has a chance of living up a fun-to-drive ethos. But that's just on paper.
Remember, this is a clean-sheet, ground-up design employing Mazda's Skyactiv brand of technologies: lightweight construction, high-compression, fuel-efficient engines, suspensions tuned for reactivity, and transmissions tweaked to shift crisply and quickly. It's Lotus's "simplify, and add lightness" ideal, combined with a clever focus on cleaner-running regular combustion engines rather than chasing electric/ hybrid technology.
The result is a conservative, practical, inexpensive vehicle that has the same footprint as Honda's CRV, but can be so much more engaging to drive. But fire up the somewhat clattery four-cylinder and slot the shifter into "D", and you won't be over-whelmed at first.
The Skyactiv-G engine features an extremely high compression ratio, and uses multi-point injectors and specially-formed piston dishing, to make a clean, controlled burn that extracts every possible joule from your tank of gas. What it does not do is provide a great deal of torque. But rev it up a little, and things start getting better. Somebody forgot to tell the CX-5 that it's supposed to be a buttoned-down grocery-getter.
This six-speed automatic is one of the loveliest transmissions I've ever had the opportunity to sample, and might even be better than Porsche's much-vaunted PDK, given the application.
It's a conventional box, but has been tweaked and lightened, and it does a great job both at guessing your intent and reacting very quickly to manual inputs.
I suppose you could best characterize Mazda's CUV with a single word: willing. It wants to zip through corners, it wants to get off the highway and find a curvy back-road; it makes you want to drive just a little bit further. Even if it's your humdrum daily-driver, you might find it just special enough to put a grin on your face.
