The CX-30 has the dubious distinction of being launched during a global pandemic without benefit of a preceding model to draw a buying pool from.
Ordinarily, you could give a car like this all the life expectancy of a jam doughnut at a Weight Watchers convention and yet, Mazda’s registrations year-to-date June are doing more than just OK.
Those registrations fall across two categories and the CX-30 has two in one category and one in the other.
The category with the two Mazdas is where the CX-30 is performing at its best, and as that category is for vehicles over $40k, the two performing Mazdas are the GTX and the Limited models.
Of those, NZ Company Vehicle would put good money on the GTX being the number one seller.
The Limited is spectacular, but the GTX is the right balance between practical luxury paired with performance, and this was something we picked right from day one of the virtual launch in April.
Yes, the GTX is pricier than the GSX but its less than the Limited by about equal amounts, which makes the GTX a very attractive proposition when it’s your (company) money doing the buying!
The GTX has the more powerful of the two engines available to the CX-30, namely the four-cylinder, 2.5-litre, direct injection, SkyActiv-G petrol with cylinder deactivation and i-stop.
That lengthy mouthful of a mill uses 6.8 litres of fuel on combined cycle according to Mazda and these days, manufacturer figures are on the conservative side, so don’t be at all surprised if your figures are lower.
Those numbers will stay low if the systems Mazda has put in place are left to do their thing, and I am specifically talking about i-stop, the function which turns the engine off when the vehicle is idling.
A function onboard the CX-30 will tell you exactly how much time has been spent at idle and how much fuel has been saved, so before deactivating the i-stop because it feels ‘slightly uncomfortable’, try it or a few weeks and measure the results.
In the meantime, there are other elements of the CX-30 which make it such an efficient package, the six-speed transmission, the all-wheel-drive drivetrain and the magic of the SkyActiv chassis which is coupled to G-Vectoring Control Plus.
And yes, there’s a technical explanation coming: GVC Plus uses the brakes to add direct yaw moment control for further enhanced handling stability.
As the driver steers out of a corner by returning the steering wheel to the centre position, GVC Plus applies a light braking force to the outer wheels, providing a stabilising moment that helps restore the vehicle to straight line running.
But while the CX-30 is something of a technical showcase, part of its appeal – and yes, we will say ‘enduring appeal’ – is the incredible attention to detail Mazda has paid to the interior design of this vehicle.
The interior really does set the CX-30 into a class all its own, with only top end European marques able to even come close to the elegance of the Mazda. And then, Mazda went a step further, imbuing the CX-30 with the ‘less is more’ design motif of the Mazda3.
The end result is a small SUV which, in terms of quality, surpasses its rivals and puts it alongside SUVs in the medium class with their increased levels of sophistication.
And the CX-30 more than measures up to them too.
Specifications:
BODY TYPE 5 door SUV
DRIVE All wheel/ 6-speed auto
ENGINE TYPE 4-cylinder, petrol, 16 valve, direct injection
ENGINE CAPACITY 2488cc
MAX POWER 139kW @ 6000rpm
MAX TORQUE 252Nm @ 4000rpm
L/100KM (COMBINED) 6.8
CO2 EMISSIONS 156g/km
BOOT CAPACITY 430 litres
ANCAP RATING Not rated
PRICE $44,990
