Long-term report: Goodbye Mazda MX-5, hello posh CX-80 SUV

It’s out with the classic and in with the contemporary, as my MX-5 RF has gone back to Mazda and been replaced with something rather different.

Before I explain more about the new car that I’m itching to spend time with, it’s worth summing up my time with the MX-5. In all honesty, I’ve never found it so hard to hand the keys back to a car manufacturer after a long-term loan as I have with BU24 CCO.

Earlier this year I asked Mazda if I could live with an MX-5. In a previous job I had run a 2.0-litre convertible during the summer, and it was about as perfect as it could be. But this time around I wanted a different experience, so I asked if I could run one during winter and then into the following autumn.

I chose the RF version as the car’s folding hardtop would come in handy when the weather turned cold – and boy did it turn cold. The RF, Mazda-speak for Retractable Fastback, has a proper metal folding roof that, thanks to some very clever acrobatics by the electric motors, can fold away into the gap between the rear seats and the boot in around 12 seconds.

I dropped the top – which you can do up to speeds of 24mph for maximum posing – as often as I could, even when the mercury dropped. Heated seats and a hat is all you need, but, when the temperatures earlier this year were around zero degrees most mornings, the roof firmly stayed up. I didn’t mind this as the sound insulation with it up was excellent, and it made for a comfortable cruiser. Plus, I think a roof-up RF looks utterly fantastic – like a proper little coupe.

I guess most owners will drive their RFs with the top up and I can see why. Unlike the previous MX-5 (‘NC’ in proper Mazda terminology), only the top and rear-most part of the roof folds, not the whole thing. Once lowered, all that’s left are the buttresses and a thin perspex screen between the roll-over hoops. It’s a targa roof, effectively, and while it’s a good half-way house between a proper convertible and a coupe, I did find it gave pretty bad buffeting, both on the motorway with the windows up and on a country road with the windows down. I discovered a neat hack, though – if I dropped the windows by half an inch it pretty much cured the buffeting on the motorway. Bizarre, but aerodynamics is a fine science after all.

I’ve written long paragraphs in the past about how utterly perfect the MX-5 is to drive, so I won’t repeat them now. What I will say, though, is the RF feels noticeably heavier and ‘floppier’ than the conventional roadster version, more so than the actual 45kg difference suggests. But it’s not enough to cancel out the benefits of a more comfortable driving experience in winter. It still has the best steering this side of a Porsche 911, and the finest manual gearbox in mass production today. My time in the MX-5 made me realise that while cars are quickly becoming more and more anodyne to drive, you can still have fun. And you don’t need to have won the Euromillions to have that fun, either – this RF’s £35,000 (as tested) RRP is not a lot of cash for such a smile-a-minute car.

Ultimately, though, I think I would put up with slightly less comfort and go for the roadster if it were my money. It’s just that little bit nicer to drive, and, while the roof is hugely clever, it’s slightly too look-at-me – it jars with the MX-5’s honest and wholesome character.

I didn’t have long to ponder which MX-5 I would have for very long because the MX-5 was recently whisked away and its replacement arrived. The new arrival gives me the opportunity to move from what Mazda is known for – sports cars – to something it isn’t – upmarket SUVs, and seven-seaters for that matter.

Mazda wants to be known as a premium brand, and one that can properly rival the Germans like BMW and Mercedes, but also Lexus and Volvo. It began its self-improvement process with the CX-60, and now we have the CX-80. This is the car I’ll be spending the next few months living with.

On initial impressions, the CX-80 looks like a CX-60 that has appeared on Google Street View and papped unattractively by the camera car – stretched. That’s essentially what it is, though, as Mazda has lengthened the CX-60 to create an SUV with room for seven.

BW74 FOV isn’t a seven-seater, though. I’ve opted for the rather more upmarket six-seater version that has a pair of, what the Americans like to call, ‘Captain’s Chairs’ in the middle. And because this is a top-spec Takumi Plus model, there’s a very Range Rover-like centre console between them. I chose this as I want to see if Mazda’s vision to be considered as a premium brand is justified or just a pipe dream. The next few months couldn’t be more different from MX-5 ownership.