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Sweating the small stuff | 2017 Mazda CX-5 First Drive

The 2017 Mazda CX-5's door handles got their own design study. They got their own graphs, maths, and a team of people scientifically analyzing how humans interact with them. There was a whole to-do. And yet, you look at them back-to-back with their predecessors, a Spockian eyebrow reaching to the stars, and wonder what all the fuss was about. But apparently they're better. They're also perfectly illustrative of the entire effort to re-engineer and improve Mazda's best-selling model. At first, the 2017 Mazda CX-5 seems like a sensible evolution of its well-loved predecessor – there's sexier styling, a more premium cabin, and additional features, but the dimensions and engine specs look awfully similar. It certainly looks like one of those "the old car's great, let's not overthink the new one" redesigns. Except it isn't. Dig deeper and you'll see just how much meticulous work – from the door handles to the throttle response – went into making the new CX-5 a crossover that thoroughly trounces the majority of its competition. Take the efforts to make it quieter. According to Mazda's internal measurements, the sound-quelling improvements made for the CX-5's 2016 refresh already made it one of the quietest compact SUVs on the market. That apparently wasn't good enough. To what seems like an absurd degree, Mazda's engineers obsessively examined every nook, cranny, corner, and crevice to sniff out noise and eliminate it. Gaps were filled, insulation was injected, seals were added, air was redirected, glass was double glazed, and carpet replaced plastic coverings. It would seem that the Society of Persnickety Engineers is well represented at Mazda HQ. "I'm not sure how they found some of these," said Mazda vehicle development engineer Dave Coleman with a shake of his head, almost amused by the obsession and dedication of his colleagues across the proverbial hall in the sound-deadening department. (He goes over many of their enhancements in the video below.) And it worked. The new CX-5 is indeed incredibly quiet, even on San Diego's notoriously loud corrugated concrete freeways. It is quiet for a Mazda – a brand previously known for the exact opposite – and the entire segment. Even the fairly quiet 2017 Honda CR-V we drove on the same freeways on the way to San Diego couldn't match it. Actually, much of the driving experience can't be matched by a competitor.

Mazda's Tokyo concept foretells of rotary revival

Mazda has long been rumored to be planning a revival of its rotary-powered sports car. Some of those rumors may have come down to wishful thinking as much as concrete information. But now, on the eve of the Tokyo Motor Show, new details have come to light. The Japanese automaker is slated to unveil a two-door sports car concept, previewed in the teaser image above. Little in the way of firm information has been made available prior to the show car's debut, but sources are now citing senior company officials as confirming it has a rotary engine. "It is a two-door, two-seater, Mazda CEO Masamichi Kogai told Autocar. "It is a pure sports car design. We have MX-5 and another icon is a rotary sports car. We haven't talked about market reach but this would be in that segment." R&D chief Kiyoshi Fujiwara added: "People think rotary can not meet modern eco demands. The SkyActiv engineers worked on rotary and gave it cutting-edge tech. It is an essential part of our DNA and it [will] just be passed onto future engineers. It is synonymous with the brand. Some time in the future it will return and be called SkyActiv-R." The last time Mazda produced a rotary-powered model, of course, was with the RX-8, which ended production in 2012. That was preceded by three generations of RX-7, the first of which will be celebrating its 40th anniversary in 2018. If it manages to get the Wankel technology up to modern standards, that could provide just the right opportunity for Mazda to launch a new model. Reached for comment, Mazda spokesman Jacob Brown told Autoblog: "While we can confirm that Mazda continues to develop rotary engines, we cannot confirm production of a rotary at this point. Rotaries are one of the signature engineering technologies that define Mazda, and we will continue exploring them to see where they may fit for production applications." Related Video:

Mazda's Hofu plant builds its ten-millionth car

Ten million is a lot no matter which way you cut it, and no matter what you're talking about: Ten million dollars, ten million miles, ten million people... certainly ten million cars. And that's the milestone that Mazda's Hofu plant in Yamaguchi prefecture of Japan has just achieved.
The Hofu facility has been in operation since 1982, and was supplemented with a second plant on the same site ten years later. Hofu reached a million units built in 1986 and five million in 2002. But with production now at 482,100 units per year, it took less than twelve years to double that previous milestone.
The magic ten-millionth car was a new Mazda6 (known locally as the Atenza), which is built at Hofu Plant No. 2, while Hofu Plant No. 1 gears up for the new Mazda3 (aka Axela). Scroll down below for a related press release.