Behind the wheel sits high with a good overview of the surrounding traffic, exactly as people who buy large SUVs want it. Anyone who has ever driven a Mazda will immediately feel at home. In the heavy traffic of the coastal town of Cascais, we were able to leave the driving mode selector in the EV position, ie fully electric. But he would also fall there in hybrid mode. The good thing is that you can set not only how much energy should remain in the battery in the menu (so that the driver does not lose part of the power by the fact that the electric motor will not get “juice”), but you can also set how much energy is to recover the batteries when the internal combustion engine is running. This happens when braking and, for example, when driving fast on the highway. The range for electricity can thus be decently extended by smart management. We have only one fundamental reservation about Mazda in city traffic. The booster setting is relatively stiff and you have to work hard to turn. Women behind the wheel will not like that. And also not for those who are used to maneuvering in the parking lot by, in common parlance, washing the plates. The control of the slot machine is also quite rigid, which has a somewhat illogical backdrop for the uninitiated, in which you have to move up, down and to the side.
However, in the winding districts leading to the westernmost tip of Europe, Cabo da Roca, we are already reaching for a sports regime. The Mazda CX-60 speeds up throttle response and a stiffer booster comes in handy. Of course, this is not a sports machine, so you can’t expect more communication between the front wheels and the driver’s palms. The steering is a bit more distant, but precise and it is not a problem to place the car in a corner at will. We definitely didn’t get the awkwardness we kind of expected from a big SUV. The classic “trampling” from side to side, which suffers from the largest models in this category with an untightened chassis, did not appear either.
Acceleration is an experience in itself. You depress the accelerator pedal and you can guess what melody the hybrid set will play for you. Something rumbles from the inside, it hisses, and then the sound melts into a motor melody, which, by the way, this power unit is really nice. The transition between electric driving and combustion is sometimes almost imperceptible, sometimes the car jerks. However, this can be attributed to the fact that this is really a pre-series model, which will need to be slightly fine-tuned before production can begin. In any case, acceleration is a very interesting experience that we enjoyed not only the entire 20 kilometers from the driver’s seat, but also from the passenger seat. By the way, the automatic transmission, which does not have a conventional converter, but a multi-plate clutch, deserves great praise. This reverses the steps faster and still runs smoothly. We can imagine that with a two-clutch automatic machine, for example, the ride would be sweeter.
And then there’s the chassis. Mazda is renowned for building cars with perfectly thought-out chassis that have the ideal balance between sportiness and comfort. It appeals to almost every driver. And the same can be said for the CX-60, no matter how big and heavy the SUV. The Mazdi chassis works great here. And the engineers, who decided that the CX-60 won’t even offer adaptive shock absorbers, honestly think so, which certainly doesn’t matter. The car is, of course, big and heavy, so a little patience is needed in the corners, but even in a sharper corner, the CX-60 doesn’t lean too much. This is also due to the electronic system, which reaches for the wheels and, if necessary, brakes slightly in a corner to level the car. However, his impact is not felt, so the driver almost feels as if this large SUV is driving “like on tracks”. If you are bothered by the missing shock absorbers, we recommend that you take a ride first and then make a decision.
You can see the Mazda CX-60, which we drove around Lisbon, in the following photo gallery:
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