Amarant's Track: June 2011

All cars reviews are sponsored by Omanternity.

If you are above 18 and you were interested in cars 10 years ago, you would probably remember what the name “Mazda” used to mean back then. It was at the bottom of the cars food chain. Nissan, Toyota, Mitsubishi, Subaru, any Japanese name would be better than Mazda. Omanis used to call Mazdas two things: “Mozooh” (as in banana) and “one-year visa” because it expires after that. I believe the 180 degrees turn started when the Mazda 6 was introduced back in 2002 (was it the year Ford increased its shares in Mazda to 34 %?). Passing other milestones like the Mazda 3 and the CX-9, Mazda started building a new reputation: a Japanese manufacturer that offers top-of-the-notch stylish cars that are reliable in terms of performance and life span.

Looks:

The new Mazda 6 brought up a revolutionary look and futuristic design concepts. Since looks are subjective, I won’t hesitate to say that the Mazda 6 is on top when it comes to exterior design. I like its design much more than any of its competitors. It is indeed “6 and the city” as AutoWeek mentioned. However, I honestly think that the changes made in the Ultra version made it look worse. The headlights are so narrow and the tailpipes are a little bit oversized. If I am to express the differences in emoticons language, the normal Mazda 6 is the (-_-) and the Ultra is the (>_<) and I am personally a (-_-) fan. That is simply my humble opinion as I’m sure there are many Ninja-style fans out there. Ugly orange reflectors on the front fenders are not helping the design either.

Interior:

This is where the Ultra shows its muscles in front of the normal Mazda. It offers one of the most accommodating cabins of any midsize sedan. The nice leather and wood trim gives you the chill of entering a car with nice materials. The Ultra also comes with rear passengers ACs which is a big plus in our country. Smart key-less start is the trend these days and Mazda didn’t fall behind because it is available. The nice far away display is very useful to get info like: time, temperature, average consumption and kilometers range. Other standard features include: 10 speakers BOSE system, AUX port, steering wheel stereo controls and cruise control. Something I didn’t like about the interior is the 2-tone trim. It is something nice to have if the colors were Black & Red, Black & Blue or even Black & Yellow. But having it as Black & Beige in a luxury-feel car doesn’t seem right to me.

Driving:

So far, whatever I wrote above were stuff I checked while the car was sitting in the showroom. So if you’re a person who would like a car based on its looks and interior, I would say: ignore this section and go for the Mazda 6 Ultra (providing that it’s in your budget). The first driving test was the launch from stop. The car burns so much rubber even if the TC was on! I expected something like that when you give a 275 hp car a front-wheel drive. I head to the highway to tryout the performance of the 3.7L V6 Powerplant with a question floating in my mind: are those 275 horses under the hood Japanese or American? (Because I know that sometimes the Japanese HPs are slightly overrated). That’s when I realized that Mazda shouldn’t have used the word Ultra for this model. The Acceleration is really good but I have driven 200 hp cars which were faster. I didn’t really reach high speeds but if the car still didn’t show its power till the 4th gear, then when? Perhaps the high expectations I had got me disappointed easily. Taking the car through corners wasn’t pleasant either. Massive understeer and unbalanced ride when going through steep corners tells you this is “power without control” (and believe me no Pirelli tires would fix that). Don’t take from what I said that the new Ultra is bad on the road, it is only less than what I expected.

Specifications: