BIG IS BEAUTIFUL

Sean O'Grady finds the Mazda CX-80 has everything you'd expect from a seven-seater SUV or indeed an actual bus...

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Bus. That’s the word that springs to mind when contemplating the new Mazda CX-80. Inevitably so, given that it’s a full sevenseater, ie for adults, and is a tiny bit longer than a Bentley Flying Spur and an inch, or about three centimetres, shorter than a Range Rover.

Mazda calls the styling “Graceful Toughness”, which is a kind way of saying “slabby”. I can personally attest that the rearmost pair of seats will accommodate a shortish, late-middle-aged male adult with the average acrobatic skills required to access the back end with the middle seats tipped forward.

The front seats are capacious and comfortable, and, as you should expect, the whole charabanc feels safer and more solid than any municipal coach you might have been on.

Obviously, as with all such seven-seaters – a niche market in contemporary low-fertility Britain – you can’t have your cake and eat it, so with seven on board, the otherwise generous and versatile boot is reduced to Fiat 500 proportions. A roof box would be the answer for big family excursions. Aside from that, all this Mazda really needs is a conductor to make sure everyone’s happy.

Failing that, there’s the driver, and she or he can have their fun, too. It’s unfair to say that the CX-80 drives likes some old diesel unit, but if the driver selects “standard” mode then progress is satisfactory rather than startling.

This is quite simply because it weighs almost three tonnes, even before you’ve added extra human beings, thanks to the petrol/plug-in hybrid set-up, complete with sizeable battery pack (17.8kWh and 177kg) and, in my example, all the extra engineering you need for permanent four-wheel drive.