Mazda 6 review

A quick reminder of prices, then: SE-L starts at £24,990, Sport starts at £27,790, while GT Sport starts at £32,370. Or, from a quick look around, from £350, £375, and £442 respectively on a three-year agreement with a six-month initial payment. 

Across all trim levels, there’s plenty of useful features including a head-up display, featuring speed limits, nav directions and information about the cruise control or speed limiter, DAB radio, plus Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. And thank goodness: we’d suggest sticking to the latter for the satnav, the in-built system is hugely frustrating; difficult to navigate and sent us to the wrong destination in central London on more than one occasion. Painful. 

Sport trim, meanwhile, also adds heated front seats and steering wheel, powered lumbar adjustment, reversing camera, and the excellent 11-speaker Bose audio system, while GT sport trim adds a sunroof – eats into headroom a surprising amount, be warned – plus Nappa leather coating on the dash, seats and armrests. No more scratchy plastics.

Which would we choose? We’d probably recommend going for the 2.0-litre 162bhp manual in Sport trim. You won’t win any races off the lights, sure, but this is a family saloon not a DTM racer. It’s also impressively efficient – a real-life 44.8mpg figure (higher than Mazda’s claimed 42.2mpg, need we remind you) is not to be sniffed at as a commuter. And you’ll get plenty of luxury options including that fine Bose audio system to drown out the road and wind noise. Peak 6, basically.

Oh, and on a final note: there’s a three-year (or 60,000 mile) warranty, with extended cover optionally available, but Mazdas are generally reliable enough that you ought not to worry.