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One Of A Kind That's the engineers' shorthand, anyway. What it means is that, as well as using forced induction, the Xedos 9's alloy V6 engine has a unique way with valve timing. On the compression stroke, the inlet valves stay open until the piston is already well up the cylinder. In physical measurements, the engine has a capacity just below 2.3 litres, but Mazda reckons that its working displacement is about a litre higher than that. A design like this won't work properly without having extra air rammed into it, which is why the Xedos 9 has a high-efficiency Mazda-Ishikawajima supercharger as standard. This kind of engine spent generations as a purely experimental project, thought up first of all by James Atkinson and then developed by Ralph Miller. It was still in the experimental stage by the time Miller died in 1967, but Mazda took it up in the 1980s, and finally put it into production as the Mazda-Miller engine. Poor old Atkinson. But Mazda does acknowledge his pioneer status. Forgetting all the unusual technology, the Xedos 9 engine is smooth, powerful and responsive, with strong torque, very reasonable economy and moderate emissions. Part of the attraction of driving this model, of course, is that there aren't many others around, and there's the appeal of sitting behind a type of engine of which the next example may be 100 miles away. One does not draw attention to that, of course. The Xedos 9 is extremely discreet. Mazda's biggest saloon was designed with sleek and unflamboyant lines. It doesn't have quite the retro look of the Xedos 6, and it's larger in all dimensions. If you put it alongside comparable cars from Stuttgart and Munich, you realise it doesn't lose out in the styling stakes. Against most of these rival cars, it's also very competitively priced. Particularly so, when you take the level of standard equipment into account. The Xedos 9 is loaded with gear - climate control, electronic traction control, leather trim, a six-disc CD autochanger and so on - which you do, of course, find on other cars in this class, but very often as heftily-priced options. There's a roomy passenger cabin, and the Xedos 9 has Mazda's all-time best fascia design. This is always a puzzle - it's as if the company has a Studio A which takes a stodgy approach and has no notion about trim textures, and a Studio B which works on models like the Xedos 9 and the 323, and is full of fresh ideas. Out on the road the Xedos 9 is a swift mover. Its through-the-gears acceleration feels much sharper than the off-the-line figure suggests, and the engine is very responsive to the throttle, yet flexible if you just want to potter around. There's no sensation of peakiness, just a surge of power. Good balance between the requirements of handling and ride, low noise levels and a reassuring stability on most surfaces and at most speeds. All that and a unique technical specification. What a pity this car isn't better known. Price: £28,695 |
It's one of the most understated cars in its class, and Mazda doesn't do anything in the way of heavy marketing for it, but the Xedos 9 is a really remarkable high performance luxury saloon. This is the only production car in the world with its type of engine - a supercharged three-and-a-half stroke.
