Next-generation Mazda 6 plans could fall victim to SUV boom

A rear-wheel-drive successor to the Mazda 6 is no certainty for Australia, and may come off second-best to the brand’s expanded SUV line-up.

The mooted rear-wheel-drive successor to the current 2022 Mazda 6 sedan is no certainty for Australia, and could potentially be overlooked for a wider range of SUVs.

With shrinking demand for mid-size and large sedans, both in Australia and around the world, market forces may control whether or not the new Mazda 6 sedan comes to Australia.

Rumours out of Japan suggested the new Mazda 6 would debut in the first half of 2022, riding on Mazda’s new ‘Large’ rear-wheel-drive platform, with the option of inline-six power – but these reports have yet to eventuate.

In an interview with Drive ahead the launch of the revised MX-5 range, Mazda Australia marketing director Alastair Doak said of a possible rear-wheel-drive replacement for the current Mazda 6: “It’s an interesting one. I know there’s been heaps of speculation around it.”

“I guess, if you look around the world … [the] traditional car/sedan market has been shrinking for many years, not just in Australia, so I guess our priority globally will be the [rear-wheel-drive] Large Architecture and the four SUVs that we’ve already mentioned.”

Mazda has so far confirmed that its so-called Large Architecture will underpin four distinct SUV models; the CX-60, CX-70, CX-80 and CX-90. So far only the CX-60 has been confirmed for Australia (pictured in spy images, below), and is set to be revealed early on Wednesday 9 March 2022 (2am AEDT).

Under the new model plan CX-60 and CX-70 will be two-row mid-size SUVs. The CX-80 and CX-90 will be larger vehicles with three rows of seats.

The CX-70 and CX-90 will be positioned as ‘wide body’ vehicles designed primarily for North America – like today’s three-row CX-9 – while the others will be narrow-format vehicles suited to Asian and European roads, akin to the current ‘narrow-body’ CX-8.

“We’re still working out how many of those four we can get.” Doak said, “If we do take all four, we’ll be the only big market around the globe to do that, so that’s exciting that we even have the opportunity to do that.”

For now the Mazda 6 sedan and wagon range have been granted a stay of execution, with successors to one or both body styles still not locked for a production reveal, nor Australian sales.

The current Mazda 6 has been on sale in Australia for nearly a decade – though continual updates, including a facelift and the introduction of 2.5-litre turbo-petrol power in 2018, have kept interest high among newer rivals.

Mazda’s new Large Architecture rear-wheel drive platform differs from the current Mazda 6, not only with its switch from front-wheel drive, but with the availability of a new inline six-cylinder engine family, plug-in hybrid powertrains and all-wheel drive.

“Mazda 6 will continue as is for a while. There’s some updates in the pipeline for it down the track,” according to Doak. “It’s still the second-best seller in that segment,”

In the ‘medium passenger car under $60,000’ segment, 1491 examples of the Mazda 6 were reported as sold, during which places it a distant second after the top-selling Toyota Camry, which reported 13,081 cars as sold.

Prestige mid-size cars returned more robust sales figures, with the BMW 3 Series and Mercedes-Benz C-Class in the ‘medium cars over $60,000’ segment outselling the Mazda 6 with 3982 and 2832 sales respectively during 2021.

With prestige cars returning stronger sales than lower-cost mainstream mid-sizers, the possibility remains that Mazda could try for an upmarket push to keep sales of the Mazda 6’s successor buoyant.

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