MAZDA6 for America Arrives
May 05, 2008

By Peter Nunn

TOKYO -- When it didn’t turn up at the New York auto show back in March, some began to wonder when Mazda would finally get around to unveiling the long awaited, unique-to-the-U.S. 2009 Mazda6 sports sedan.

The answer came last week, in time for Mazda’s conference in Japan to announce its 2007-08 business year results.

As Mazda executives sat down to give details of another year’s turbocharged performance from the self-styled Zoom Zoom company (net profit up 25 percent to a record $916 million on a best-ever turnover of $3.5 billion, with global vehicle sales up nearly 5 percent to 1.36 million units), this new American Mazda6 sedan was the icing on the cake.

Mazda had already launched the second generation 6 in Europe, Japan and Australia, to great effect. But America would be getting its own unique version with bigger body, extra cabin space and bigger flagship 3.7-liter V6 to meet the wants and needs of U.S. buyers.

The first, outgoing Mazda6 was a truly pivotal model. Launched in 2002, it was the first of a completely new generation of stylish, good-to-drive Mazdas and, after years of losses, was quite simply the car that saved the company. In the inevitable fight with the Camry and Accord in the crucial mid-size segment, the 6 may never have made it to the top step of the podium, but the press and owners loved it, nonetheless. Suffice to say, it was also light years ahead of the reliable but uninspired 626 that it replaced.

Fast forward to today and America’s new Mazda6 is effectively a long-wheelbase, reskinned version of the new 6 sedan that’s already out in other parts of the world.

It’s the third model to be designed by Mazda with the U.S. in mind, after the hit CX-7 and CX-9 crossover SUVs. Like the outgoing 6, it will be built at Auto Alliance in Flat Rock, Michigan, the joint venture plant run in conjunction with Ford.

First sales of this 2009 Mazda6, which will come just as a sedan but with a choice of three trim levels (Sport, Touring and Grand Touring) are expected to kick off in late summer. But pricing and sales targets are still firmly under wraps.

Under the hood, America’s new 6 will offer the choice of a new MZR 2.5-liter four cylinder unit and the same 3.7-liter V6 that features in the CX-9.

There won’t, however, be a new Mazdaspeed 6. Mazda’s experiment with that punchy 2.3-liter direct injection turbo/all-wheel-drive sports sedan a couple years back didn’t pan out in the U.S. so won’t be repeated. (Mazda is, however, planning a next generation version of the smaller, better-received Mazdaspeed 3).

As fuel prices rocket, some will debate, of course, whether the move to a bigger bodied model with enlarged 3.7-liter V6 option is actually the smartest move right now.

On the green front, Mazda does offer a clean, high-tech and impressive 2.0-liter turbodiesel in European-spec versions of the new 6, but there’s no word right now whether that powertrain will make it to the U.S.

Mazda says it plans to sell 400,000 units in the U.S. in the business year to March 2009. That would actually be a drop of 1.4 per cent but in a softening market, others may well fare worse.

With the arrival of this sparkling new 6 sedan, plus a regenerated dealer network, Mazda has every reason to expect that sales will hold up.

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