COMMENT Mazda’s wonderfully mad for daring to be different when it comes to diesel

As anachronisms go, the new diesel engine in the Mazda CX-60 takes some beating. Not a thrilling way to start a column, I’ll admit, but bear with me.

I type this with some trepidation, because coming out and saying that you like a car with a diesel engine is much like saying you’re a fan of Gary Glitter’s back catalogue of music. You can’t possibly advocate in 2023 a vehicle that unashamedly drives past the (probably broken) electric car charger and heads to the blackcoloured pump at the local service station.

It wasn’t all that long ago that the diesel version of any car, bar perhaps a supermini, was the de facto choice. In a very short space of time, diesels moved from being purely suitable for tractors or old Citroens to being rather attractive if you wanted to travel gigantic distances and could have one powering your company car.

I fear I’m starting to even bore myself now, but what I’m trying to say is that while the new CX-60 diesel comes across as being about 15 years behind the times, I think it’s the right engine at the right time.

Mazda – as always – is doing things differently. While other carmakers are axeing diesels because it’s the fashionable thing to do, Mazda thinks there’s a huge opportunity here. However, Mazda being Mazda isn’t just slapping any old derv under the bonnet to sweep up sales, but in its own delightfully enthusiastic way it believes it can build a six-cylinder that’s way more efficient than a four-pot.

It wasn’t all that long ago that the diesel version of any car, bar perhaps a supermini, was the de facto choice.

Not wanting to go all Open University here, but the new 3.3-litre straight-six diesel in the CX-60 uses a fancy new fuel injection technology called DCPCI (distribution-controlled partially premixed compression ignition). There’s also a new piston design, and the combination of both of these means the big in-line six can overcome its larger weight, friction and all those kinds of things by being able to run in a more lean-burn state of operation for longer than a four-cylinder diesel. And the result? It’s cleaner and more fuelefficient. Just as everyone jettisons diesel technology, Mazda has developed something that makes dervs more attractive and cleverer than before.

Mazda has a history of doing this. For decades it has stuck faithfully to its Wankel practice of combustion, and in so doing created some of the most wonderfully engineered (and eccentric you could say) cars. Mazda will even reintroduce Wankel engines to the UK soon with the range-extender MX-30; it could have thrown in a simple four-cylinder petrol engine to make its MX-30 electric car more useable to more people, but no, the complex Wankel it is.

Adding to the wonderful madness, Mazda will put a new 3.0-litre straight-six petrol engine in the CX-60 later this year, and while everyone is pointing and laughing, I think it’s a shrewd move.

Going back to the diesel for a moment, getting rid of diesel power in large cars all seems very sensible, but what about those customers who rely on that fuel type? In my other life of being a towcar tester for the Caravan and Motorhome Club, towers are horrified that the current line-up of cars simply favours petrol plug-in hybrids and pure-electrics. For the towing market, diesel remains king, as it does for so many other sectors.

This abandonment of technology because it’s fashionable to do so isn’t liked by customers. While a pure-electric future lies just around the corner, the consumer of the here-and-now doesn’t necessarily want or need a car with a plug. Many do, but not everyone. It’s why Ford’s decision to stop the Fiesta angered me so much, because there’s no viable replacement for a sub-£20,000 car that has space for four, all the tech you could want and is cheap to run. And yet, this summer the Fiesta will die.

So, while some might poo-poo Mazda’s apparent insanity at embracing dying fuel types, it’s offering options for the customer of today. And that’s surely the main job of a carmaker, isn’t it?