They say the compact crossover is a crowded market, but that’s only in the sense that any market loosely defined (futures, greeting cards, animal fats) looks crowded. What exactly is the Mazda CX-3? The thing that is larger than the Mazda 2, or the thing that is smaller than the SUV? It’s the latter, of course, because everyone loves the word “SUV”, but it isn’t large enough, least of all in the boot capacity, to warrant the term, even if it technically skims it.
The upside is that it looks neat and sharp. They are funny, Mazda, full of high design concepts: “Kodo” is the unified look across the styles. The CX-3 meets it by being aggressive yet sleek around the nose, tidy through the body, sheered off neatly at the back. Skyactiv is the technology, which they illustrate with a video that pits a CX-3 against a greyhound. It is weird nobody pointed out that most cars are faster than dogs.
Anyway, because it is attractive on the outside, and on the inside has leatherette seating with red piping, and because its variant is “Sport Nav diesel”, you expect a thrill. At 10.1 seconds to do 0-62mph, its getaway speed is tasty; it feels much more alive than the Dacia Duster, the other big beast (popularity-wise) in this class. Sometimes nippy cars don’t accelerate well in the middle gears, but this was pleasant in all of them, and cruised well. Someone I am acquainted with by marriage complained that the fascia on the doors was the wrong height to lean your elbow on and get a tan on your arm, but otherwise, both driver and passenger position were comfortable.
In the cabin, things were spacious and there were likable features; for some reason, the leather-effect stick shift area really pleased me. The touchscreen multimedia system is good on paper but lacks finesse, claiming mid-journey that satnav hadn’t been installed after all. The intuition quotient was high, though: there wasn’t anything I couldn’t guess, except where the seventh speaker was. (Nice to have so many of these, by the way. It got pretty loud, which I like in a car, especially when I don’t know where I’m going.)
The ride is a bit bouncy and unpredictable – enough to make you think more about suspense than suspension. It’s a bit unfair to talk about primary ride when you take a car to a festival, but it was even a bit of a prima donna when it came to a seam in the tarmac. Melodrama was the only dramatic thing about it; it was sometimes admirable for its competence, but not showstopping.
Mazda CX-3: in numbers
Price £22,435
Top speed 110mph
Acceleration 0-62mph in 10.1 seconds
Combined fuel consumption 70.6 mpg
CO2 emissions 105g/km (diesel)
Cool rating 6/10
Eco rating 8/10
