Northern Group Assembles for Mazda CX-60 Diesel Launch in the Scottish Borders

A strong contingent from the Northern Group was in attendance this week as Mazda launched the second model in its new CX-60 range in the Scottish Borders.

Although not strictly within the NGMW region, the planned driving route for the launch would send attendees down into Northumberland and past Kielder Water on the Bellingham to Deadwater road. With the event starting and finishing at Edinburgh Airport and an overnight stop at the Schloss Roxburghe hotel near Kelso it was a tour of the Borders region.

Mazda already launched the CX-60, the largest vehicle in its European range, in Liverpool back in August 2022. This event though was a first drive of a brand-new engine, not only for the range but for the Mazda brand as a whole: a 3.3-litre, straight six turbodiesel, in 198hp and high-output 250hp forms.

It might seem an odd choice to develop a brand new and comparatively enormous — it’s the largest ever engine for a European Mazda road car — diesel right now, as the wider industry trends are going towards petrol-hybrids and EVs, but — as Mazda’s UK managing director Jeremy Thomson explains, the market sector that the CX-60 is aiming for has a significant diesel mix that isn’t really going away.

Of course in true Mazda form the fact it’s a diesel engine doesn’t tell the whole story. This particular unit is another clever merger of combustion types which, like the SkyActivX petrol engine, uses mix of charge and ignition technologies and a unique design for the combustion chamber — officially called Distribution-Controlled Partially Premixed Compression Ignition (DCPCI).

There’s also a 48V mild-hybrid system which provides 16hp within the drivetrain to give fill-in torque during gearshifts and parts of the duty cycle where the engine would be running at a lower efficiency, with the combination helping it to achieve 40% thermal efficiency and 137g/km (54mpg) on the WLTP test.

Like the PHEV model, the diesel is available in Exclusive-Line, Homura, and Takumi specifications, with the 198hp, rear-wheel drive diesel forming the new entry point to the range at £43,010. Switching to the high-output engine, with AWD as standard, it tops out at £50,755. You can read our members’ thoughts on the £50k Mazda across their outlets!