2017 Mazda 6 vs Toyota Camry

What's the difference?

So, you’re thinking about a wagon? Wow, you’d be one of the very few people left in the world yet to be convinced that SUVs are the answer to everything. That’s what I like about you; you’ve always been your own person, sticking to your guns, not following the crowd.

Problem is, most car makers do follow the crowd. Because crowds equal money. And because everybody has gone crazy for SUVs, the manufacturers have given them what they want. And mostly that means no more wagons.

But there are a few brands who have kept wagons in the lineup. There’s the Ford Mondeo, the Volkswagen Passat, the Skoda Superb, the Subaru Levorg.

And the car we’re testing in this review; the Mazda6 wagon. The version we tested was the GT grade with the petrol engine and an automatic transmission. 

So, is a model that’s been around almost six years starting to show its age? And is that boot going to be big enough? I found out when the Mazda6 GT wagon came to live with my family for a week.

There was a time when transforming the Toyota Camry into a car that was interesting to look at and fun to drive would take a wand-waving miracle of Harry Potter proportions.

But there have been some strange goings-on at Toyota HQ lately, with the Japanese giant slowly shaking off its cardigan of conservatism and trying to produce cars that are actually, genuinely, fun to drive.

And so the first Camry range to be fully imported since 1987 (we all know by now that local production is grinding to a halt in October this year) is also the first sedan to be built on the company's 'Toyota New Global Architecture' - the same that underpins the C-HR small SUV.

The new platform joins a company-wide focus on driver enjoyment and dynamics - two things not often associated with the existing Camry.

Scheduled for an Australian launch in November, this all-new and all-imported Camry (our cars are now built in Japan) will arrive with a choice of a four-cylinder petrol, four-cylinder hybrid or V6 petrol engine and in two distinct body styles - safe or sporty.

But if you’re thinking this all sounds like more of the same, think again. Or, in the words of Toyota Australia's corporate manager of product planning, Marcus Umlauff, “Everything is different. Everything has changed.”

So has Toyota delivered the best-driving Camry ever?