Mazda 6 2013 News

Despite tasty hero cars led by the F-Type Jaguar and Aston Martin One-77, it's the real world cars that are of most interest.The return of the Nissan Pulsar, the unveiling of the Toyota Corolla and the first Sydney appearance of the Mazda6 and Mitsubishi Mirage are all proof that ordinary customers now rule the roost. As car sales track strongly towards an all-time record, it's real people spending their own money who are the real target for carmakers."If you get the product right, everything else follows," the top Aussie at Toyota Australia, Dave Buttner, tells Carsguide. "All the growth in sales this year is with private buyers, as government departments have been winding back and fleet sales are also down. Private buyers are confident and they are spending on the second-biggest purchase after their house."Nissan confirmed its commitment to the new-age PUlsar with a $19,990 starting price and a SSS under lights. "Pulsar is back and we have big plans," Bill Peffer, managing director of Nissan Australia, tells Carsguide.For Mazda, the new 6 is its first all-new arrival since the GFC and a pointer to the replacement for the top selling Mazda3. "You can see now where we're going," Doug Dickson, MD of Mazda Australia, says. And the baby Mirage? "It's something new for us, and it's going to bring a lot of people to the brand. I reckon we'll sell heaps," Mitsubishi marketing chief Paul Unerkov laughs. 

Unveiled early this morning at the Moscow motor show, the third generation Mazda 6 could prove as bracing a tonic as its forebear.

Celebrations as the first Mazda 6 rolls off the factory line - festooned with tinsel.

The company is pushing ahead with plans to introduce its next-generation direct-injection petrol Sky G engines across the local range next year. The Sky D diesel engines are also in the pipeline.The company's head of global marketing, sales and customer service, Masazumi Wakayama, says the company is committed to lowering fuel economy across its entire range by 2015. "The Sky engines are critical to that goal," he says.Initially 2.0-litre petrol Sky G and a 2.2-litre diesel Sky D will arrive. The petrol engine is said to deliver a 15 per cent fuel economy gain while the diesel improvement is 20 per cent over current equivalent engines.Wakayama says the Sky G equipped Mazda3 delivers the same economy and emissions as today's Mazda2. Both the petrol and diesel engines will be mated with a new automatic transmission, called Sky-Drive, which acts like a dual clutch transmission.Importantly too, the Sky G engine will be mated to Toyota's hybrid drive system to power a new hybrid car. The hybrid is expected to arrive first in the Mazda6 around 2013 after both Japanese carmakers announced a hybrid technology sharing agreement last month.Wakayama says the Mazda hybrid will have all the qualities expected of a Mazda. "It will drive like a Mazda," he says.Although hybrids represent 20 per cent of total car sales in Japan, Wakayama believes the internal combustion engine is not dead. "We believe that the vast majority of cars will have internal combustion engines in 2030," he says. "That is why we are working to optimise these base technologies first.  This will benefit customers by minimising the cost of ownership."Apart from more efficient engines like the Sky range, Mazda is focused on reducing weight, introducing lower rolling resistance tyres and improved aerodynamics of its cars. "After that we will introduce stop-start and regenerative braking and hybrid systems," he says."The phased introduction of these technologies will form the future of Mazda. Of course this will eventually also lead to an electric vehicle too but we are not doing that straight away."

Most soft-road SUVs are front-wheel drives with on-demand 4WD systems of varying fallibility. The impression of extra space they convey is illusory. Their styling is usually unfortunate, and dynamically they range from acceptable to execrable.  They combine the shortcomings of legit four-wheel-drives and proper cars. And none of their virtues. Whereas increasingly, wagons are where it’s at – none more so than the up-tarted Mazda 6 Touring Wagon, which enters showrooms shortly. This cow-upholstered petrol auto version features the various virtually negligible tweaks common to the rest of the range which has copped its mid-lifecycle upgrade (next to no improvements were required). Oh alright, I’d like another 500 revs, a bit more power and a lot more down low torque – something direct injection and forced induction would address – but then I’d also like a land of autobahns, first class secondary roads and German standards of driver training for all license holders. The point is, the Mazda6 has more than enough of what it has. And if your driving life is typical, there are dynamic dimensions to this family lugger that you’ll never chart.  But if you do go there, the 6 will – as ever – go with you all the way. If only Audi did steering that was this meaningful all the time. If only all cars in which the front wheels do both the steering and the driving handled so superbly. Yet it’s functional to a fault with a rear seat-down storage capacity that at more than 1700 litres is sufficient to stack several sumos. And, to these jaded rheumy eyes, the Wagon is the best looker of the 6 range. The slightly smaller Mazda3 has become the favourite of private buyers in this wide brown land – yes, a car from Hiroshima, not elsewhere in Japan. And certainly not Melbourne or Adelaide. The bigger 6 starts in the 3’s price range and is a better family device. Mazda doesn’t aspire to the prestige label, but the 6 slays any number of European imports that hide their glaring deficiencies behind their ‘aspirational’ badges. It’s priced against the Camry but is degrees of magnitude superior to that duller-than-ditchwater device. And if you want an antidote to Camry Hybrid hype, try the Mazda6 diesel wagon with its 400Nm and 5.9l/100km.  These wagons do everything a soft roader purports – and much that it can’t.