2018 Kia Sportage vs Mazda CX-5

What's the difference?

The SUV is just an evolution of the hatchback.

It’s hardly difficult to trace the lineage. Much like small sedans were the Neanderthals to the hatchback’s Homo Sapiens, hatchbacks themselves have become the prototype for something bigger, chunkier, more secure.

Are they really better though? Our Kia Sportage here is the middle of your average SUV range in 2018. It suits the ‘future hatchback’ paradigm to a T – with its accentuated proportions looking as though someone’s just put a hatchback in Photoshop and dragged it out diagonally.

To see if the Sportage offers anything more than a hatch, I took it on a 400km round-trip camping adventure from Sydney to the Wolgan Valley (around 180km north-west). My trip involved three passengers, a boot full of supplies and camping gear, as well as varied terrain including 15km of unsealed roads.

So, has the SUV earned its spot as the car market’s apex predator? And, is the SLi the pick of the Sportage range? Read on to find out.

Mazda makes nice looking, user-friendly vehicles and its CX models are great examples of what has been a rather successful formula so far. But the pressure, perceived or otherwise, of a rapidly-growing and -changing population which seeks new shiny and bright stuff minute to minute, weighs heavily on car manufacturers and, as is their won’t, they are swift to tweak/change/facelift/upgrade their vehicles in attempt to keep pace with the times. But, does any good ever come from messing with a winning formula? Has it backfired this time? Read on to find out.