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Quietly tucked away in a corner of the 2006 Los Angeles Auto Show II was the all new Mazda CX-9 Crossover Sport Utility Vehicle. No surprise here, as we brought you the reveal from the New York Auto Show in April (click here) and the CX-9 has been seen tooling nearby on the roads surrounding Mazda North American Operations headquarters in Irvine, California. The disturbing thing was that the CX-9 was getting no attention even with an overhead display similar to that Mazda used to launch the CX-7 last year. VehicleVoice and AutoPacific staffers stumbled on this forlorn looking CX-9 while searching for the john.

The CX-9 becomes Mazda’s flagship and effectively replaces the not-missed Mazda Millenia near luxury sedan that literally faded away several years ago. Sharing a platform with the Ford Edge and Lincoln MKX, Mazda did the Ford entries one better by enlarging the body and adding a third row of seats. In the Mazda lineup the CX-7 does the 5-passenger duty and the CX-9 does the 7-passenger duty.

The CX-9 is powered by the same new generation 3.5L DOHC V6 with 263-horsepower that propels the Ford products. As with the Ford and Lincoln, the CX-9 is on a front wheel drive platform and AWD is optional. A 6-speed automatic transmission with sport shift is standard. It has Dynamic Stability Control and Roll Stability Control plus a whole host of safety features standard that have become the price of entry in the Crossover SUV market.
Seems like Mazda has checked all the boxes on the CX-9. Now, the proof in the driving.