Mazda Cx-5

It’s time to face the facts. Compact crossovers aren’t just a flash-in-the-pan trend, they’re a juggernaut within the auto industry. They’re not going anywhere any time soon. So even though I find many of them boring, or with looks like they were drawn by a seven-year-old, I have to come to grips with reality.

The Mazda CX-5 first launched just a few years back with the 2013 model year, and quickly rose to become the best-selling vehicle in the entire Mazda line here in the US. With over 370,000 global sales last year, and representing about 1/4 of Mazda’s total sales, it’s always a risky proposition to make changes to such a popular and important part of any manufacturer’s lineup. 

At first glance, the current Mazda CX-5 isn’t an old vehicle. In a sea of crossovers that are currently on sale, it looks better than many of them and has the good driving dynamics present in all Mazda products.

Mazda recently invited me and a number of journalists to the frigid, snow-covered roads of Crested Butte, Colorado to learn how their vehicles handle in extreme weather. While I’d love to talk entirely about the time I spent hooning around the ice in a MX-5 Miata, that was simply icing on the frozen cake.