The Nagare was a concept car invented by Mazda a couple of years ago and it reflected a new philosophy of natural and organic design to signpost the future of all its cars.
Mazda – being Japanese – has always been quick to connect new designs with a new way of thinking: remember how Mazda conceived the first MX5 around the principal of jinba ittai, or rider and horse as one, achieving unity behind the wheel.
On paper the approach might have been hard to grasp, but once you took the MX5 for a spin you knew exactly what Mazda meant by jinba ittai.
Moving on a few generations from the birth of the MX5, Mazda defined Nagare literally as a flow, a celebration of proportions and surface language. In our language, it is a specifically Japanese take, formulated in California, on what we in plain English refer to as aerodynamics.
And yet, looking at the wonderful crop of contemporary Mazda cars, from the Mazda2 to the Mazda5, you can see the willingness of Mazda connecting the jewel in the crown of its driving experience – the brilliant engine – with the subtlety of the car’s appearance.
The Mazda brand has always been attractive to the eye and it rarely gets it wrong or skewed: the MX5 was so handsome when it was born that it required no major alterations in twenty years.
And yet when you consider the Mazda5 in the early stages of its conception –a medium segment MPV to seat seven – you can imagine designers scratching their heads as they fiddled with aesthetics.
From the rear, you can see the concealed D-pillars, the re-located rear lamps and a lower rear bumper which means that the 5 is closer in appearance from the outside to a sporty hatchback rather than a mundane MPV.
Compromise is the price of the need to deliver performance, but you wouldn’t know in the Mazda5 which, even if you have six bums on seats, is extremely agile because of the solid body control.
Driving the Mazda5 on your own or with a couple of the brother’s kids is a completely different experience: as it is a Mazda you don’t expect it to hang around and it doesn’t. Traditionally, we expect Mazda engines to like nothing more that to rev hard and drive the front wheels with urgency.
With talkative kids in the back, your needs vary and your senses sharpen: straight away you become acutely aware of the quick steering and the glue-like grip, the advantage that comes from facing big and perfectly positioned buttons and dials and, the Mazda hallmark, sharp and communicative control.
And what did the kids like best about the car? Its agility, its capaciousness, its lack of road noise? Nope. It was a choice between the flexible Karakuri seats and the sliding doors, which are power operated, so that they could hop in and out in a tight space without defacing an adjacent car.
The 5, designed for utility, has impressive safety features: the side impact beams in the doors have been strengthened, the three rows of passengers are protected by airbags, and the seat backs on the second row have also been reinforced.
The 5 has the ISOFIX system for attaching child seats, and Emergency Stop Signalling (ESS), Dynamic Stability Control (DSC) and Traction Control (TCS) while rear parking sensors are available on the Executive SE and Sport grades.
*** Fuel consumption levels across the Mazda5 range have been improved, as have C02 emission levels, making it the perfect choice for the environmentally and economically conscious. The lightweight and frugal 1.6 Diesel engine produces an impressive 115ps and CO2 emissions of just 138g/km, putting it in Tax Band B. The engine is available with a 6-speed manual transmission and it meets the current Euro5 emissions. standard.