First Glance at the 2007 Mazda CX-7

Mazda knows exactly whom they are trying to target with the CX-7, and it's not your typical SUV buyer. The ideal CX-7 buyers are couples in their 30s or 40s with no kids. They want the moves of a sport sedan with the utility of an SUV. They don't have families and they don't want frumpy SUVs that focus on family-friendly features they don't need. Oddly enough, many of them drive SUVs like the Honda CR-V or the Toyota RAV4, but see them as different than SUVs -- in fact they complain just as loudly about big SUVs as car owners do (too big, too resource-hungry, too hard to see around, etc.).

So Mazda designed the CX-7 to be something between a sports sedan and an SUV. Yeah, yeah, I know that sounds like marketing drivel, and it's not even new marketing drivel -- but having seen and driven the CX-7, I can tell you that Mazda has really delivered.

The CX-7 was designed with distinctly sports-car-like cues and a distinctly sports-car-like attitude. Check out the aggressive front styling, the big 18" wheels, and the tall shoulders formed by the wheel wells. Cool, eh? Inside, it's trimmed out just as nicely; all three models (Sport, Touring and Grand Touring) include air conditioning, power windows/locks/mirrors, six airbags, antilock brakes, and dynamic stability control, with optional goodies like a DVD navigation system, 9-speaker BOSE stereo, and a proximity key system. Grown-up stuff.