Mazda’s CEO, speaking with Automotive News, has confirmed that the company is well on its way to offering a production version of the striking Koeru concept, which debuted this past September.
Prior to the Koeru taking the stage three months ago, most onlookers believed it would preview the all-new CX-9 three-row crossover. But while the CX-9 does indeed share some styling elements with the Koeru, the show car is in fact built on the smaller CX-5 platform, with the two sharing the same wheelbase. The Koeru is dramatically lower and substantively wider and longer than the CX-5, however, a vehicle that received a comprehensive update for 2016, and we posited at the time that the Koeru could turn into something else altogether. It seems that’s going to be the case. Mazda CEO Masamichi Kogai tells Automotive News that he sees a production Koeru as “a totally new car. It’s a lower, sporty SUV. It’s close to a wagon.” He added that it would provide “more driving pleasure” than the company’s other crossovers, which already generate plenty of driving pleasure, and now we’ve typed “driving pleasure” enough times that it’s starting to look creepy.

In any event, this sounds like a vehicle we can get behind. While we’re no fans of dressing up cars to look like butch off-roaders?or sportifying SUVs?the reality is that we won’t be getting any traditional wagons like the sultry Mazda...