For a vehicle without any kind of adaptive damping or air suspension, it still manages to be both comfortable and composed in corners. Our drive route also featured a jaunt on a twisty canyon road and the CX-50 performed admirably. It’s an excellent highway cruiser, with great road manners and a solid steering feel on center that makes it easy to keep the CX-50 tracking dead straight with minimal effort. Lengthening the wheelbase has smoothed out the ride, and yet the CX-50 also retains the agility that is a hallmark of both of those SUVs. It seems to combine the best attributes of the CX-30 and CX-5. Once it gets going, the engine is well tuned for passing maneuvers and the transmission does a good job of downshifting only one time, but for city driving I’d like more immediate responsiveness from the powertrain. While maximum torque comes on early at 2,000 rpm, there’s still noticeable lag even in the more aggressive Sport mode. The CX-50 also feels slower off the line than its CX-30 counterpart (and even more so than the Mazda3). Mazda’s insistence on sticking with its 6-speed transmission is starting to wear thin as transmissions with 7- or 8-speeds have become more refined. My test vehicle, a 2.5T Premium Plus, came with the more powerful of the CX-50’s two engines. A 6-speed automatic remains the only transmission and all-wheel drive comes standard, like on every Mazda SUV. The turbocharged engine makes 256-hp and 320 lb-ft of torque on 93 octane fuel (which you can’t even buy in some states, including California), but those figures drop to 227-hp and 310 lb-ft with the 87 octane most buyers will use. A 187-hp, 2.5-liter inline-4 is standard, with a 2.5-liter turbo-4 optional. The CX-50’s powertrain offerings are lifted directly from the CX-30 and CX-5. It gives the CX-50 more of a wagon-esque look, like the Subaru Outback, rather than a traditional SUV design with an upright stance.
At 185.8 inches long and 75.6 inches wide, it’s also 5.7 inches longer and 3.0 inches wider than the incumbent CX-5.Įven with the added ground clearance, the CX-50 stands shorter than the CX-5 by a hair, and that makes the body look a bit more compressed. The CX-50’s 110.8-inch wheelbase is 6.4 inches longer than the CX-30’s and 4.6 inches longer than the CX-5’s.
The CX-50 shares a platform with the CX-5 and the smaller CX-30, but it’s been stretched out to make the CX-50 longer and wider than the CX-5 by a fair margin. The widened version of Mazda’s grille feeding directly into the headlight clusters makes the front more cohesive and it looks great in profile, but those prominent fenders make the diagonal views less convincing. It looks attractive from some angles but awkward at others. The CX-50 is a curious sight to behold in person.
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