Mazda CX-80

Mazda’s new flagship – a seven-seat SUV – arrives to challenge the likes of the Skoda Kodiaq

The seven-seat follow up to Mazda’s CX-60 of 2022, the Mazda CX-80 is on the cusp of arrival in the UK. A formal press launch is planned for early 2025, but the company loaned us a pair of very-late-prototype, right-hand drive examples of the car – cars it described as ’99-per-cent finished’ – to see how they cope with UK motoring.Other than perhaps under the bonnet, this isn’t a particularly unusual family SUV; although Mazda certainly has previous with those. Take the Pathfinder XV-1: a Series 1 Land Rover knock-off, only even more goggle-eyed, especially when painted Kermit green, as many were. In the 1960s, a tiny run of these 4x4s left a dedicated Mazda plant in what was then Burma, having been ordered by various government agencies. Even today some Mazda execs won’t believe the XV-1 really existed unless you show them a physical specimen; with its badges.If the XV-1 was at least functi