Mazda CX-60 is brand’s most important model in 20 years

Veteran Mazda Australia executives have declared the new Mazda CX-60 the most important model in the 20 years since the Japanese auto brand relaunched itself as the Zoom-Zoom car company.

The all-new five-seat mid-size SUV expands the brand into the premium pricing space with the primary intention of giving existing customers a place to proceed from mainstream Mazda models such as the CX-5.

“We are giving them that destination to stay with us so it is a very important car,” said Mazda Australia marketing chief Alastair Doak.

Zoom-Zoom was the tagline announced by Mazda in 2000 as it charted a more independent course from then part-owner Ford Motor Company.

A series of important new models led by the Mazda6 in 2002 soon followed. It still lives on today in a third generation.

In the years since Mazda Australia has built its new vehicle sales from less than 30,000 per annum to 100,000 sales per annum and it sits consistently at number two in the market behind Toyota.

The premium push began with the launch of the latest Mazda3 in 2019, but the CX-60 is far more tangible as it is based on an all-new architecture, has all-new engines including Mazda’s first plug-in hybrid and is priced up against the likes of the Audi Q5 and Lexus NX.

“We are expanding the known universe for Mazda,” said Doak, who has worked at the company for 22 years. “You could argue it [CX-60] is as important as it [Mazda6] was then.”

Added Mazda Australia managing director Vinesh Bhindhi, a 27-year employee: “Over the 27 years every time we launch a car we say it’s important, but this is even more exciting.”

Mazda is targeting 6000 sales per annum for the CX-60, which would mean outselling all premium medium SUV contenders apart from the battery-electric Tesla Model Y.

But Mazda’s men insist luring buyers out of Audis and BMWs et al – some of them potentially former Mazda buyers returning to the brand – would be a bypoduct not a target of the CX-60.

“I can absolutely guarantee we are not targeting any competitive vehicle with this car,” said Doak. “It’s about getting our story right and getting the Mazda brand story right.

“I think it’s a very dangerous thing to think the grass is greener on the other side of the fence and you are trying to be them or target that car, it’s a dangerous thing to do.

“I can guarantee that’s not what we have done with this car either. It’s about who we are and where we want to go and understanding our customers where they want to go and giving them the best specification and choice we can with CX-60.”

Mazda’s premium push will continue with the seven-seat CX-90 in August and the CX-80 in 2024. The brand’s current flagship SUV, the CX-9, will cease production by the end of 2023.

But Bhindhi stressed these new premium SUVs were an expansion of the brand, not an abandonment of the mainstream space.

“We now have 14 [body style] options to offer so the conversation on the showroom floor with a dealer partner and customer is ‘what are your needs and what do you really need in terms of a vehicle, what’s your lifestyle?’.

“That’s a much stronger position to be in.”

Underlining it’s model breadth, Mazda will update its entry-level Mazda2 in September, with the CX-30 compact SUV also expected to get a facelift this year.

The Mazda3, Mazda6 and CX-8 have also been updated this year.

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