Starting a journey in the Mazda 6 is more of an occasion than you might expect. You get in, shut the door and the light show begins, with the gradual illumination of first the heater controls, then the stereo controls, then the words ‘zoom-zoom’ on the fascia-top display, and finally the white instrument needles.
Turn on the ignition and a three-note ‘zoom-zoom-zoom’ tune plays and the display bids you hello. Thankfully you can disable the tune but the rest stays.
That display has other tricks. It shows heater/air-con settings, stereo settings and a clock/trip computer readout, and you can alter all of these via the ‘CF-Net’ (‘cross-function network’) buttons and toggle on the steering wheel.
The orange graphics look a bit cheap, though, and the odometer, trip meter and outside temperature are hard to read for anyone with long-sightedness. The cabin itself looks crisp and modern, and uses genuinely high-quality materials.
Most people can get comfortable in the driving seat, which has the usual adjustments plus one for lumbar support. There’s a decent view forward, but reverse parking calls for some guesswork, especially when the windows mist up, as they are prone to do.
Rear space is generous for most family needs, though the rear-seats don't fold to give a flat load bay. Instead, Mazda has shaped the boot floor to meet the folded backrests, which means it slopes uphill and your luggage gradually migrates rearwards.
The Mazda looks good value next to its rivals, and there’s no price increase over the old model if you disregard the new one’s extra equipment. The plan is to raise the number of sales to company fleets who will like the fact that, in the 1.8’s case, official fuel figures show an economy improvement of around 12 per cent.
Our own test average was 28.4mpg, but on a long motorway run it managed a respectable 37.9mpg.