2017 Mazda CX-5 vs Subaru XV

What's the difference?

The Mazda CX-5 was a genuine phenomenon. It pretty much came out of nowhere and knocked off a few cars we previously thought had an unassailable grasp on the Australian SUV budget.

Even more extraordinary was the fact the stylish CX-5 came from a company that had given us a fairly bland decade of cars, after a flourish in the late '90s descended into a series of dull boxes (although the 3 did signal a revival).

I drove a first-gen CX-5 late in its life and found it hard to believe it needed replacing. But in 2017 that's exactly what Mazda did. Fresh sheetmetal, lots of detail work, and a new interior were all dropped on to a lightly updated chassis to give us the second-generation CX-5.

And a lot faces ended up buried in hands at other car companies because it turns out Mazda did a smashing job second time around.

Subaru is a small SUV in the same way that I'm Usain Bolt; we both technically belong to the same species, sure, but there are a couple of sizeable differences. The ability to run 100m without a single rest stop, for example.

And so it is with the Subaru's XV, which stands light years apart from the regular small SUV crowd. For one, it's bloody massive, trending closer to a mid-size SUV than it does a tiny Mazda CX-3. Plus, it's not really an SUV at all, looking much more like a high-riding wagon than a traditionally shaped urban warrior.

Clearly Subaru is onto something; the XV has been a monster hit, sitting fifth outright in small SUV sales this year, and cementing itself as the brand's outright best seller in Australia.

All of which goes some way to explaining why this all-new 2018 model appears - looks-wise, at least - near-identical to the outgoing car. If it ain't broke and all that.

But we figure there must be some new stuff going on under the surface, so we climbed behind the wheel of the top-spec 2.0i-S to take a closer look.