If you wanna come out of the automotive slump these days, one of the first places to double down is compact SUVs.
They grew nearly 20% last year, so Mazda has got the all-new CX-5 showing here at LA.
You'll see all-new sheet metal all around.
I read Volvo in the face, maybe that's just me.
But under the hood is the key thing, a full launch of what they call the Sky Active technologies.
This car is showing a 2-liter inline-4 gasoline direct-injected motor
with a sky-high compression rate of 13:1, getting a lot out of a little.
And that goes in to a gearbox that they say combines the best of automatic, dual clutch and CVT behavior all in one.
We'll see when they deliver us one and I get it out on the road.
In terms of mileage, that yields 26/33 for this guy; pretty good for a car that's relatively chunky and kinda like moving a loaf of bread through the air.
Inside, you're gonna find an all-new interface of 5.8-inch touchscreen LCD,
and if you option up nav, it's TomTom technology.
I've seen some third party PNDs like TomTom and Garmin get integrated into the dashboards before.
It can be hit and miss.
So I'll be curious to see what this guy looks like when it hits the market and we get one early 2012.
