The Mazda5 may be arriving late to the six-seater microvan party in Europe and Japan, but it's the first one through the door in North America. Sometimes being the first to arrive pegs one as nerdy, and indeed viewed from the back, the Mazda5 does look a bit Poindexter. But check out the standard 17-inch footwear and the rakish Mazda nose, and you'll get a better sense of what this wagonette is all about.
Under the skin lurks all the comparison-test-winning hardware that we love in the Mazda3--the same 2.3-liter DOHC four (tweaked for a broader torque curve at the expense of a few peak horsepower and pound-feet), close-ratio five-speed stick, and a similarly taut front-strut/multilink rear suspension. While the 5 is only 3.2 inches longer than a Mazda3 sedan, raising the roof by 6.5 inches allows the passengers to sit up tall enough to make room for a truly liveable third row of two bucket seats.
All that additional space and hardware boosts curb weight by about 500 pounds relative to the Mazda3, but that fatter torque curve and overall gearing that's about six percent shorter help spur the Mazda5 to 60 mph just 0.8 second off the 3's pace, at 8.5 seconds. Expect the four-speed automatic to add about a second to that time.
On our mountain-road loop, the 5 impressed our editors with its surprising lack of body roll, high levels of grip, and amazing neutrality when finessed through the tightest bends using all the proper techniques. Of course, we were all driving solo, and each of us wondered how lively it would feel full of people and gear or spinning through the automatic. But the many clever packaging features, like sliding middle-row seats with under-cushion storage, sport-sedan handling, and the promise of 27-mpg highway fuel economy made us feel like Mazda's starting a party that'll soon be rockin'.