Mazda's new seven-seat SUV upsizes the cookie-cutter

Apart from the slightly pebbly sand and the deep ledges carved into the tops of the beaches, it’s hard to tell that the Gold Coast was hit by a category-2 cyclone little more than a month ago.

Mind you, judging by the traffic that descended on the place over the Easter long weekend, this clearly isn’t much of a secret.

Every man and his dog and their surfboards are here. We’re talking bumper-to-bumper, and barely exceeding 60 km/h between Brisbane and Tweed Heads.

At a time like this, you need a nice place to sit. And a bit of distance between you and the kids, so they’re not asking if we’re there yet right in your ears. Fortunately, we had both.

For our recent family road trip up north, timed perfectly for precisely the moment Canberra is plunging into winter, Mazda Australia kindly loaned us … um, let me double check … because in the past year, Mazda has released no fewer than four new SUVs as part of its journey upmarket – the CX-60, the CX-70, the CX-80 and the CX-90 – and it seems they only hired one designer, once, for the job.

We were invited to their world premiere in Canberra last July – the first time the four were in one place – and, yes, it was dark outside the National Gallery of Australia, and the parked cars were only revealed by soft mood lighting, but I struggled to pick them apart.

After further studying the models on the Mazda website, however, here’s the gist: the CX-60 is the most affordable of the five-seaters (starting from $60,550), and the CX-80 is the most affordable of the seven-seaters (starting from $54,950). Although the CX-80 also has the option for six seats.

The side window line also lifts slightly towards the rear on the CX-80, and wears thicker chrome.

We had the $61,950 Touring model on our trip, which Mazda expects to remain the best-seller, finished in ‘Artisan Red’ with the same deep lustre you’d see in a glass of shiraz.

There is no doubt that the CX-80 improves on its predecessor’s looks. To my eyes, at least, the old CX-8 always looked too much like a Mazda 6 wagon that got carried away with the biscuit tin. That said, one passerby still reckoned the CX-80 looks “like it’s been stung by a bee” and I can see what he meant.

One thing’s for sure – the interior is beautiful, with its tasteful copper-coloured finish on the air-conditioning vents and thin pinstripe of brown leather running across the dash.

The massive fridge-like doors make it easy to wrangle kids and their seats in and out, and while we never used them, there’s still plenty of boot space left even when the rear-most seats are folded out.

Tech is pretty basic – by which I mean, not annoying – even if we had to constantly remind ourselves the touchscreen on the dashboard isn’t actually a touchscreen and can only be controlled via a rotary dial between the seats.

But that’s how it is with Mazda. You make do without the 65-inch screen and a million ambient lighting settings because of more important things, like driving dynamics. So the real pity is the CX-80 doesn’t really woo here.

Where the old CX-8 extracted power like teeth from its breathless naturally aspirated 2.5-litre four-cylinder, the CX-80 scores a new turbocharged 3-litre inline-six petrol engine with some very mild assistance from an electric motor. And all-wheel drive.

It pulls strongly, with a strangely attractive noise, and even recorded a very respectable fuel consumption figure of 9.2 litres per 100 km. But there’s a jerk in the gearbox when you take off, and the stop-start feature often kicks in before I have come to a complete halt, only to bring the engine back to life with a nasty shunt when it realises.

Then there’s the drive. Most of our route followed the M1, which is a useful thoroughfare for transporting a large amount of cargo at a reasonable speed in a mostly straight line up the coast. And at 110 km/h, the CX-80 is swallowing up the road like a cold beer after mowing a lawn.

But on a few twisty scenic detours through the Hunter Valley and Glasshouse Mountains, it shows its size. It feels cumbersome, more so even than the old turbocharged seven-seat CX-9. And the suspension tends to crash over bumps.

As a family car, then, the CX-80 feels a bit too rushed. A bit cookie-cutter. I wanted more than a very nice place to sit.

2025 Mazda CX-80 G40e Touring

• $61,950 (before on-road costs)
• 3.3-litre turbo-petrol inline-six, 48V mild-hybrid, 209 kW / 450 Nm
• 8-speed automatic, All-wheel drive (AWD)
• 8.4 litres per 100 km claimed fuel consumption, 91 RON
• 2114 kg.

Thanks to Mazda Australia for providing this car for testing. Region has no commercial arrangement with Mazda Australia.