Early drive of Mazda 5 - On the road

From September, the 5 will be offered with two petrol engines – a 113bhp 1.8-litre and a 143bhp 2.0-litre. Diesel buyers will have to wait until October or November, when there will be a choice of 108bhp and 141bhp 2.0-litre turbodiesels.

Mazda expects the 1.8-litre petrol to be the most popular choice. While 113bhp doesn’t sound too weedy, the 5 is a big car, weighing in at almost 1.5 tonnes. Performance is fairly sedate even with just the driver on board, and our test car’s engine became annoyingly boomy at around 5000rpm.

The 2.0-litre makes a better fist of dealing with the 5’ bulk and is likely to cost around £500 more than the 1.8. Going for the larger engine cuts the 0-62mph time by 0.6sec to 10.8sec but, if anything, the difference feels more marked than this.

The more powerful of the two diesels could be a better bet for anyone who regularly travels heavily loaded, thanks to a healthy 266lb ft of pulling strength. In spite of Mazda’s efforts to improve refinement, it’s not the quietest diesel around. We’ve yet to drive the less-powerful version.

Recent Mazdas have been fun to drive, but the flipside has been an overly firm ride quality. We’ll reserve final judgement until we’ve spent more time in the car on UK roads. However, during our brief drive on super-smooth French Tarmac, the 5 handled precisely and rode more comfortably than Mazda’s small hatch, the 3.