Mazda CX-50: CX-5 replacement or addition?

A dual-SUV model line strategy is emerging at Mazda with the CX-50 name reportedly trademarked.

While Japanese website Spyder7 says the CX-50 could replace the big-selling Mazda CX-5 mid-sizer, it could also be a stylish adjunct to the existing model in the same way the swoopy CX-30 relates to the CX-3 small SUV.

And the Mazda CX-30 and CX-50 might be two of many more sleek new SUVs to be marketed by Mazda in Australia, as the Japanese brand has trademarked CX-10 right through to CX-90 with the European Patent Office.

A line of family SUV wagons and adjacent fastbacks would help Mazda feed the seemingly insatiable global demand for all sorts of SUVs.

It reflects a strategy similar to the likes of BMW, which has odd-numbered (family) and even-numbered (sports) SUV model lines.

Of course, the Mazda CX-4 kinda knocks this argument about because it’s a swoopy SUV without the ‘0’. But it’s also a China-only model that debuted four years ago.

The Japanese brand also has plans to sell a model codenamed CX-X (CX-10?), which will be built at a new plant in the USA shared with Toyota. The look of that vehicle, which could be all-electric, hasn’t been revealed yet.

Importantly, the CX-50 would boost Mazda’s stocks in the medium segment if it does arrive in the next couple of years as an addition to the range, as the current CX-5’s lifespan has been stretched out to 2023 or potentially even later.

That’s because a new-generation rear/all-wheel drive architecture on which the next CX-5 will be based won’t be finished until March 2023.

That revelation was provided from the very top of the company, president Akira Muramoto, in an interview with Automotive News.

Mazda will, of course, apply refreshes to the current CX-5 to keep punters interested until its replacement date.

But Mazda Australia marketing boss Alastair Doak offered strong hints that Mazda has other plans in the medium SUV segment to keep interest bubbling away.

“We will have a plan to be competitive in that marketplace,” he told carsales earlier this year.

“We are not talking specific models, but there are other things we are not talking about.

“There will be a plan. Forget the model, we will be competitive in the medium SUV segment.”

Reconsider those quotes in the light of the CX-50 and it’s easy to suggest Doak might have had that model in mind.

Certainly, given the Australian division’s powerful position in Mazda’s global sales hierarchy there’s no doubt Doak would know what’s in the future product pipeline and how the SUV strategy rolls out.

Of course, all this is intermingled with that new rear- and all-wheel drive architecture, which is designed to cater for inline four-cylinder and upcoming inline six-cylinder petrol and diesel engines, plus plug-in hybrid and 48-volt mild-hybrid powertrains.

The delay out to early 2023 has been attributed to a need to uprate the architecture’s electrification capabilities.

Intriguingly, Spyder7 suggested the CX-50 could be based on the new architecture, have both I6 and I4 engines and go on-sale as early as 2021.

Who is right? Time will tell.

Official 2017 Mazda CX-5 sketches pictured here