Twenty 21 Car Of The Year: Mazda CX-30

It took Mazda to build a compact SUV of real depth and ability; one largely devoid of the compromises that have existed in this segment from its inception

- Ash Westerman

‘UNANIMITY’ CAN BE a tricky word to say; much harder to achieve. In an increasingly divided and opinionated world, getting a disparate group of individuals to form a unilateral consensus on anything can be near-impossible. The COTY judging process is often no exception, yet for 2021, in a rare moment of great(ish) minds thinking alike, all six members of the judging panel cast their vote for the winner you see here. There would be no split decision, no recasting, no blow-ups or toys thrown out of the pram. The Mazda CX-30 is the 2021 Wheels Car of the Year, and all of us agreed on it.

For Mazda, it’s one hell of an achievement, and takes the company’s tally to nine COTY victories since the award’s inception in 1963, putting the Hiroshima-based brand only one win behind Holden as the award’s most successful manufacturer of all time. (Hot tip for those who enjoy a punt: Mazda has the better odds compared to the Lion brand to increase its haul...)

So where exactly does the CX-30’s brilliance lie? Well, that warrants deeper dissection, because that’s arguably what it doesn’t have: an area of true breakthrough brilliance. The old expression ‘jack of all trades; master of none’ used to be one of denigration; a suggestion that a worker was versatile yet lacked an area of true speciality. In the case of the CX-30, it’s actually the highest compliment we can deliver it. As we’ll outline here, the key to its COTY success was not a couple areas of pure genius; instead it scored solidly against all five criteria, and resolutely did not drop the ball in any measurable area.