14 Nov 02
Mazda's 6 range - saloon, five-door hatch and Wagon estate - is one of the sportiest, most stylish and competitively-priced contenders in its class. The 6 handles well, its petrol engines are refined and powerful (the diesel's a little more workaday), the cabin is nicely designed and finished, and it's well-equipped, too. We like it. Now comes the version with a mouthful of a name: the Mazda6 Sport4 AWD. Well, it's supposed to be Sport 4 as in Sport to the power of 4, maybe to imply that it's 4x4x4x4 times as sporty as the other models in the range, but firstly, that wouldn't read well on a web page with small type, and secondly, it isn't. We'll take the four to stand for four-wheel drive. This set-up is Mazda's own, unrelated to that of the Jaguar X-Type or any other Ford Motor Company products, and automatically distributes power to the front and rear axles according to driving conditions and the amount of grip - in normal conditions, the power is split 50:50, though at sustained high speeds, such as on the motorway, it is front-wheel drive only, and on slippery surfaces, if the front wheels lose traction power goes to the rear axle. Anyway, the driver doesn't have to intervene as this is all electronically controlled - no active input required.
Fitted with the smooth, refined 2.3-litre petrol engine (162 bhp, 0-60 in 12.3 seconds), the Sport4 comes in Wagon form only and yes, it's aimed at the marketing bods' favourite people that do "active leisure pursuits", with an "affluent, dynamic lifestyle". We've heard all this before, of course. These people are not so active though that they want to flex their left foot, as the Sport4 comes only with automatic transmission. Auto with a sequential-shift facility, that is: a system called Activematic. There should be no mistaking this car for a plodding workhorse load-lugger, then, even if some of the more cynical Mazda team are aware it is more likely to be deployed as a caravan-puller than as a surfboard-carrier or a mountain-biking thirty-something style statement.
