The 323bhp Mazda CX-60 Is Here And It's Getting An All-New Inline-Six

Here it is, the first car to receive Mazda’s all-new and much-hyped inline-six. There’s just one small thing - the CX-60 doesn’t have it yet. The 3.3-litre six-cylinder diesel won’t be here until the end of the year, with its 3.0-litre six-pot petrol cousin joining the range in 2023.

Still, the 2.5-litre plug-in hybrid version available to order now certainly isn’t to be sniffed at. In fact, it’s the most powerful road-going Mazda ever. Combining a naturally-aspirated petrol engine with a single electric motor and a 17.8kWh battery, the electrified powertrain delivers 323bhp.

Being a big SUV carting around a large battery pack, the CX-60 isn’t light, so you won’t be smoking an RX-7 at the lights any time soon. The 0-62mph time is 5.8 seconds, and the top speed is undisclosed at this point. An arguably more important stat for the average CX-60 buyer is the electric-only range, which is up to 39 miles, or in urban settings, up to 41. The WLTP combined fuel consumption and CO2 emissions figures - which are usually pretty meaningless IRL for PHEVs - stand at 188mpg and 33g/km.

Under the skin, you’ll find a longitudinally-mounted engine powering all wheels via an eight-speed automatic gearbox, with the electric motor living within the latter. The whole shebang is underpinned by Mazda’s new Skyactiv Scalable Architecture, featuring double-wishbone front suspension and a multi-link setup at the rear.

Along with the “excellent bodyshell rigidity” Mazda is promising, the CX-60 will further sharpen its handling behaviour using “Kinetic Posture Control”. This sounds like something to do with an office chair, but it’s actually a system that brakes the inside rear wheel during hard cornering to stabilise the body. Mazda debuted something similar on the limited-run, JDM-only MX-5 990S a little while ago.

Inside, there’s the kind of cabin we’ve grown accustomed to from Mazda, appearing minimalist but without any egregious deletion of physical buttons. There’s the usual ‘floating’ infotainment screen protruding from the middle of the dashboard, to the side of which is a digital instrument cluster.

The range starts at £43,950 for a CX-60 in ‘Exclusive-Line’ trim. Up from there is the Homura with body-coloured wheel arch trim, fancier seats, 20-inch wheels and a facial recognition system that identifies the driver and adjusts various parameters depending on their preferences. Finally is the £48,050 Takumi, with even nicer rims and various chrome-plated and gloss black trim pieces.

The CX-60 is the first of two cars to be launched on Mazda’s new predominantly rear-drive architecture in the next two years, the second being the three-row CX-80 SUV. If you’d rather something that sits closer to the ground, there have been suggestions that Mazda may use the platform and engine for a rear-wheel drive 6 saloon.