All-new Mazda6: No ordinary family car

Just when you thought that the executive sedan segment had become too luxurious, too straight-laced for its own good what with the likes of the Toyota Camry and Honda Accord, along comes the 2008 Mazda6. The first generation Mazda6 clearly moved to a different beat what with its intimate cockpit, slinky styling, and genuinely athletic handling. This time, the second generation raises the bar with even more evocative looks and higher performance. The all-new platform wears sheetmetal that’s raffish from any angle, even though some angles are unapologetically BMW-esque.

Viewed from head-on, the Mazda6’s powerdome hood is flanked by squat, racy fenders punctuated by jewel-like headlamp and foglamp clusters; reminiscent of the RX-8 sports car. From the back, the tail is just slightly bulbous but largely devoid of extraneous design elements save for the clean execution of the taillamps, the 3rd brake lamp integrated into the trunklid, and those sporty dual tailpipes at both corners of the bumper.

In profile, the rear half is obviously inspired by the BMW 5-Series with details like the sharp cutlines of the doors, and the rather extreme taper of the windows as it flows from the B-pillar on to the dog-leg kink of the C-pillar. Well, they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery…

Inside, the Mazda6 continues to live up to its driving machine reputation. The black-and-silver cockpit evokes fighter plane ambience with finely detailed buttons and gauges, while the blue-and-red instrumentation will make you feel like you’re doing 100 miles an hour even while stuck on EDSA.

Engine-wise, Mazda is actually being pragmatic, forgoing the large displacement V6 option as Toyota, Honda, and Hyundai have done. Instead, a 2.5-liter, 16-valve, Double Overhead Camshaft four-cylinder engine sits in the engine bay. It’s rated at 168 horsepower at 6,000 rpm and 22.6 kg-m of torque at 4,000 rpm; up 4 horses and 1.9 kg-m from the old 2.3-liter.  The power peak is 500 rpm lower than before though and, matched to a 5-speed automatic transmission with Active Adaptive Shift technology, suggests that the drivetrain is more responsive than ever – and the old Mazda6 was already a lot of fun to drive hard.

Backing up the drivetrain is a sports-tuned chassis bestowed with electric assist power steering, all-disk brakes with ABS, Dynamic Stability Control, and a front double wishbone-rear multilink suspension. 50-series, 17-inch tires set on intriguingly designed multi-spoke alloy wheels promise ample cornering traction. To maximize trunk space, a compact spare is fitted instead of a full-size, so you’d better be careful not to flat those nice tires.

Despite the sporting overtures, the car is still wisely specc’d with the usual things that people in its price bracket look for. For the introductory price of P1.499M, standard equipment includes sporty bucket seats, leather upholstery, power-adjustable front seats (8-way for the driver, 4- for the front passenger), 60-40 split rear seatback, rain-sensing wipers, manual levelling headlamps, dual airbags, front seatbelt pretensioners, 6-speaker stereo with AUX jack and steering wheel controls, and full-auto climate control. With this much character and features rolled into a platform with proven fun-to-drive credentials, it’ll be interesting to see how this brash pseudo-sports sedan fares against the more conservatively styled competition.