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VW offers nothing in its class, while Ford\u2019s cramped EcoSport entry is a boxy eggbeater. One of the hottest aisles in autodom, mainstream subcompacts boast a variety of toys like the off-roady Subaru Crosstrek, rugged Jeep Renegade, roomy Honda HR-V\u00a0and funky Kia Soul.<\/p>\n
Now it\u2019s got a toned $23,000\u00a0athlete.<\/p>\n
But the CX-30 is much more than a fun-to-drive ute (as refreshing as that is to say). Its simple, timeless design will wear well. It\u2019s no Mazda 3 hatch (the most beautiful compact car ever penned), largely because designers felt compelled to lard the CX-30 with black body-cladding to give it SUV cred. That may protect its fenders from the rare off-road event,\u00a0but it dulls Mazda\u2019s knife-edge good looks next to full\u00a0steel-body stallions like the BMW X1.<\/p>\n
Still, it\u2019s a looker in Soul Red, and if the cladding bugs you, match it with a darker color like Gunmetal Gray. The simple elegance continues inside with a sweeping horizontal design familiar to the Mazda 3 hatchback \u2014 and to BMW and Tesla.<\/p>\n
Like Tesla, its broad dash lines are efficient and uncluttered. Like BMW, the instrument and infotainment screen are driver-focused \u2014 the result of fussy engineers obsessed with keeping drivers’ eyes glued to the road.<\/p>\n
Over the spaghetti roads of southern California’s\u00a0Cuyamaca Mountains, everything I needed was close. The screen navigation (Apple CarPlay and Android Auto standard) is high on the dash. The deft, multi-way remote rotary-controller (just like BMW) is at my elbow. The i-Activsense surround-view (like Tesla) is in the instrument cluster to monitor cars around me.<\/p>\n
More awkward than the CX-30\u2019s four-digit detour from Mazda\u2019s naming convention (imagine if Audi built a crossover between the Q3 and Q5 called the Q30 \u2014 huh?) is its suggestion that it is a variant of Mazda\u2019s entry-level subcompact SUV, the slow-selling CX-3.<\/p>\n