Specifications
Price:
£23 950 (about R256 000).
Engine:
2.3-litre petrol.
Performance:
0-100km/h 6.6sec, 10.2 litres/100km.
Competitors:
Ford Mondeo ST220, Subaru Legacy 3.0R, Opel Vectra VXR.
London, England - This is the third Mazda we've tested in the space of a few months. The previous two, the MX-5 and the Mazda6 estate, were representatives of two distinct strains of the Mazda breed - sporty and sensible.
The sporty Mazdas gather rave reviews; respected by enthusiast; they are objects of desire. Not much of this rubs off on the "sensible" Mazdas - sedans, estates and hatchbacks bought as alternatives to equally sensible Nissans and Toyotas - even if models like the standard 6 are actually fairly zippy to drive.
Mazda seems to have got fed up with this state of affairs, because it has decided to introduce a new, hot version of the 6, the MPS, and it was this model we tried.
Ford SA is still debating whether to sell the car in South Africa .
You may not think a warmed-over Mazda6 is worth getting excited about, but, when you see the changes that Mazda has made, you have to sit up and take notice. There's the engine, for a start.
It's only a 2.3-litre four but it produces about 195kW so it's a member of the 100hp (75kW)/litre club. That still marks a motor as something special.
Then there's the body. You can't buy a 6 MPS hatchback or estate because only the sedan has been given the required stiffening. And the MPS has all-wheel drive to help it put all that power down. In fact, the MPS is not just a mildly tweaked version of the standard car - it's almost a full-Monty extreme makeover of the Impreza/Evo sort.
These measures work. The 6 MPS's controls retain the characteristic accuracy that one has come to expect from Mazda - although not the lightness. The engine delivers excellent performance and sounds very agreeable as it goes about its work.
I think the snag, though, is that many of the people in the market for this sort of car won't want it merely to sound pleasant - they will want it to advertise its power in a more obvious manner to the car's occupants, to passers-by and to rival road racers.
That goes not just for the way the 6 MPS sounds but the way it looks.
Mazda seems proud of its new "moist silver metallic" paint but something like that shocking orange that is popular on the Focus ST would do a better job of getting the car noticed.
Inside, too, you'd have a hard job distinguishing the MPS from the standard 6.
So there you have it. The Mazda6 MPS: a considerable talent but one that may just be a bit too understated for its own good. - The Independent, London