MAZDA CX-60 3.3 E-SKYACTIV D

All-new straight-six diesel SUV arrives in the UK. Guard of honour for the maverick?

- RICHARD LANE

TESTER'S NOTE

I also had a quick go in the 197bhp RWD version, and through a damp third-gear bend, it adopted a sliver of yaw like a proper sports saloon. Bizarre but brilliant. RL

Never change, Mazda. This is the firm that appropriated the British roadster, saving it from extinction, and that championed the rotary engine so dedicatedly that when it plumbed one into a Group C racer, victory at Le Mans followed. Quite incredible. Yet 2023 might just bring the most iconoclastic move in its long history.

Interior is a material delight with unobtrusive tech, plus it offers light colour themes

While everyone else is rapidly downsizing and fitting transverse, hybrid powertrains, if not electric ones, Mazda has just come up with a new 3.3-litre turbo-diesel straight six that natively drives the rear axle. Have we teleported back to 2003?

This is a contender for the most unexpected development of recent years, although as we found when we met the CX-60 3.3 e-Skyactiv D in February (in RWD guise, not the more potent 4WD form here), there are solid reasons for its existence beyond Mazda's pathological need to do things its own way.