Mazda 6e review

Your very first impression is one of glamour, the 6e’s doors being frameless like a sports car (or old Subaru), while its materials and general ambience feel good once you’re ensconced inside. While we don’t intimately know its Changan donor car, the new Mazda costume is superficially convincing - no matter how naff the two-spoke steering wheel looks.

But then you engage with its two screens and the impression shifts. The digital instruments are integrated nicely into the cowl, and look less tacked-on than many rivals, but the display itself lacks flair. The enormous 14.6in touchscreen is much less politely slung at the dashboard and sticks too closely to the Tesla script of being an on-board computer stuffed full of menus rather than a place to naturally interact with a motor car.

It's roomy, though, with decent passenger space front and rear and a 72-litre frunk to complement its 336-litre boot. The latter is accessed via a full-size hatchback for extra practicality; flip the back seats down and you can carve out 1,074 litres of volume.

A vast, tinted glass roof casts a pleasing glow over the cabin while the windscreen and side glass serve up decent visibility before you’ve even begun to exploit the 360-degree cameras. The rear window is a tiny sliver, mind, one that's heavily eaten into if you indulge in Mazda’s first adaptively extending rear spoiler. Odd place to debut it, we’d argue…