Leaders of the space race

SEVEN-SEATER SUVs ARE THE MODERN-DAY PEOPLE-MOVERS, SO WHICH OF THIS PAIR IS BEST SUITED TO TAKE YOU AND YOUR CREW ON A TERRESTRIAL EXPLORATION?

- ASH WESTERMAN

THERE ARE PLENTY of things in this life on which you can’t put a price, but space is not one of them. Virgin Galactic reckons it can help you join the 62-mile-high club for $250K, while back here on earth, we’re calling it 20 grand, give or take, for the regular kind of space.

That’s the rough difference between what Mazda charges for its top-spec all-wheel-drive five-seater CX-5 and its bigger brother you see here, the seven-seater CX-9 Azumi flagship. Okay, they’re not directly comparable because of equipment and tech differences, but engines and transmissions are shared, so it’s not an absurd observation: those two small seats in the third row amount to around $10,000 each. But to plenty of Aussie families, they’re so invaluable they actually are hard to put a price on.