2021 Mazda Cx-5 Carbon Edition Turbo on 2040-cars

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Crossovers help Mazda post its best January sales in 24 years

Mazda's 2017 ended on a bit of a flat note. It wrapped up the year with 2.8 percent fewer U.S. sales than 2016, and 8 of the 12 months lower month-over-month. But 2018 is off to a much brighter start with the company having its best January sales month since 1994, with just under 25,000 cars sold. Besides that headline statistic, the higher sales also mean this January exceeded 2017's sales by 15 percent or about 3,300 cars and put it ahead of January in that healthy 2016 year. Compared with this past December, though, sales are down about 2,000 cars. The gains are entirely due to the success of Mazda's crossover SUVs. The CX-5 was the best of the best with a month-over-month gain of over 66 percent. In actual numbers it sold about 13,500 copies compared with about 8,000 last January. The big three-row CX-9 had a big jump going from 1,600 units sold last January to about 2,300 for a gain of almost 47 percent. Even the little CX-3 saw a small gain between the two Januarys, going from about 1,200 to 1,350 sales. View 14 Photos Mazda's January would've been even better if its conventional cars hadn't dropped so much. Both Mazda Miata and Mazda6 sales dropped by just over half. The Mazda dropped from 3,300 sales to just under 1,600, and the Miata dropped from a little over 900 to a little over 400. Mazda3 held on a little better with just a 12 percent drop from last January going from about 6,600 to 5,800 sales. The lopsidedness of these sales isn't all that surprising. Crossovers have been a boon to loads of manufacturers. For example, Mitsubishi had an 2017 full of sales improvements, with the company finally breaking 100,000 units for the first time in years, and it was all because of improving crossover sales. January's sales also continue an unfortunate downward trend for Mazda's cars, with both the Mazda6 and Mazda3 having month-over-month declines every single month since February. It will be interesting to see if the new turbocharged engine option on the Mazda6 will improve sales of the sedan later this year. Related Video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.

Mazda shows lightweight MX-5 Spyder and Speedster at SEMA

Ever since Mazda dropped the first teaser on us last week, we've been looking forward to seeing what it had in store for us at SEMA this year. Now we've seen it what Mazda has dubbed the MX-5 Spyder and MX-5 Speedster, and they were worth the wait. The Spyder goes vintage with a silver paintjob and a brown top stretched overhead. It also has an aero kit, grille, and tonneau cover done up in carbon fiber, rides on 17-inch wheels, and features a natural leather interior. The blue Speedster, meanwhile, goes for the stripped-down, wind-in-your-hair experience. It has no roof or windshield, just a tiny deflector at the front of the dashboard. It's dropped an inch closer to the ground on an adjustable coilover suspension with 16-inch alloys, and features a center-exit exhaust. Carbon fiber helps trim 250 pounds from the curb weight, along with a stripped out interior trimmed in Alcantara. Both look pretty slick, and disappoint only in so far as they (like so many of their predecessor concepts) won't be heading for production. If they were, we'd be hard pressed to choose between the two. Which would you go for? Mazda Reveals Extreme Lightweight Design Concepts at 2015 SEMA MX-5 Concepts Display Two Different Takes on Staying True to Pure, Lightweight Sports Car Philosophy LAS VEGAS (November 3, 2015) – Mazda revealed two design concepts today at the SEMA Show in Las Vegas, based on its all-new 2016 MX-5 Miata—MX-5 Spyder and MX-5 Speedster—demonstrating two vastly different takes on lightweight, open-air performance. Lightweight. Fun-to-drive. Roadster. Those three tenets have served as the foundation for the Mazda MX-5 Miata since its 1989 introduction and continue to serve the new fourth-generation model. Focused, lightweight engineering is a guiding principle of every Mazda vehicle made with SKYACTIV Technology, allowing for greater efficiency, improved performance and agile handling dynamics. But what if that sense of lightweight performance were taken to the extreme? What if Mazda's North American designers harkened back to vintage roadsters to create thoroughly modern, bespoke concepts for what a lightweight performance car should be The results would be the MX-5 Spyder and MX-5 Speedster concepts. "Both MX-5 Spyder and MX-5 Speedster are uncompromising designs that highlight the core strengths of MX-5," said Ken Saward, design manager, Mazda North American Operations.

2021 Mazda CX-9 Review | The driver's family crossover

So you need a big family SUV, but you really don't want one. You'd definitely miss driving your smaller, sportier car, and frankly, you'd rather not hold a grudge against your kid(s) and significant other for forcing you into some vast, cumbersome beast of an automotive pachyderm. Well, there might be a happy medium: the 2021 Mazda CX-9. The CX-9 may be a three row, seven-passenger crossover, but it prioritizes driving enjoyment and interior ambiance over providing maximum space and practicality. Now that does mean it has less cargo space than those vast, cumbersome beasts and bigger kids will struggle to fit in its third row. It also can seat only seven passengers. In that way, it's better to think of the CX-9 as a two-row SUV with a bonus row for rare occasions. Honestly, that's what most people use their three-row crossovers for anyway, and if that fits your needs, then the CX-9 is a great way to go. It's a rewarding, comfortable and capable people-hauler that doesn’t feel like a punishment for parenting.   What's new for 2021? Though largely unchanged from when this generation debuted for the 2016 model year, the Mazda CX-9 gets a few small but significant enhancements for 2021. Headlining these updates is an all-new infotainment system with a larger screen and more advanced rotary control system. It makes a big difference. Mazda also updated the design of the wheels and grille on the top-end CX-9 Signature, and now offers a Carbon Edition model that slots between the Touring and Grand Touring trims. The Carbon Edition adds "Polymetal Gray" exterior paint, gloss black door mirrors, a unique gloss black front grille and 20-inch black metallic aluminum alloy wheels. Inside, it adds red leather seats and black interior trim on the dash, door panels and handle bezels. What are the CX-9 interior and in-car technology like? The interior varies by trim level, but with Mazda making moves to grab customers from some of the luxury brands on its "path to premium," the higher grades do look and feel like a high-quality, comfortable place to spend time. There are some rally nice materials in use, depending on the trim level, including Nappa leather and something called Santos Rosewood. It's all laid out in a straightforward, traditional way though crafted with care and attention to detail. Mazda's tech interface, which had been a liability in the CX-9, is upgraded for 2021 to the same one featured in the smaller CX-30. The dashtop screen is large and easy to see.