Launching a completely new midsize car, Mazda spoke of "reigniting the Mazda spark around the world" - a fairly explicit admission that the Mazda spark has failed to fly in recent years. They still make the loveable MX5 sports car - derided in some quarters as a hairdresser's car, but none the less Britain's most popular two-seater.
Otherwise, however, it's hard to disagree that the Mazda range has come to resemble a soggy box of matches. It's almost impossible to look at the 323 hatchback without yawning. And it's a miracle that anyone stayed awake while driving the old Mazda 626 saloon.
But the 626 has now been pushed out the back to where the bins are, and its replacement is this new, rather spry-looking Mazda6, a family car that nevertheless retains the will to live, as evidenced by its disco-friendly headlamps, its faintly menacing V-shaped grille, bound about with detention-facility chicken wire, and its loud and proud Mazda badge, the size of a giant's belt buckle.
It may come with four doors, or five if you buy the hatchback, but herein, we are encouraged to believe, lies "the soul of a sports car". Well, it depends which sports car you mean. I reckon you could grow to appreciate the Mazda6's quick-witted steering and general love of a tight corner without necessarily believing you had crossed over into the spiritual world of the Aston Martin Vanquish.
More likely the sports car Mazda is referring to in this context is something a little closer to their own production line: the MX5, in fact.
But I'm not sure that the Mazda6 has its soul, either, though it definitely has its steering wheel, and it is remarkable how twisting something closer to the size of a side plate than a dinner plate can imbue a person with a sense of youthful well-being, even if that person happens to be cautiously taking his family and a boot filled with clobber up the M4 to Gloucestershire at the time.
Clearly it's all very well appealing to the stubborn, last remaining traces of Nikki Lauda in the car-owning parent. But it would be an inescapable fact that purchasers of a family car are, in general, hoping to find beneath its tin shell the soul of a family car - by which they mean airbags and rigid crumple zones and room to stow bicycles, please. I'd be lying if I didn't admit that there were moments on the M4 - in particular with the wind gusting faster than one would wish to go and the rain falling hard and pluming in 10-foot waves from the underside of heavy goods vehicles - when I wished my steering wheel was a little bit bigger. And wrapped in a Volvo.
Not that Mazda isn't working very hard to deliver reassurance along with the nippiness. In the words of the company's own literature, the Mazda6 "delivers a wealth of customer-oriented safety and security features". Good news. Particularly the customer-oriented bit. If you're going to orient your safety and security features, then it might as well be towards the customer. Indeed, one could go further and state that, in 2002, any company whose safety and security features are still, say, llama- or dalmatian-oriented clearly hasn't responded to the changing demands of the marketplace.
Be confident, then, that the Mazda6 comes with lots of airbags, assisted braking and one of those devices that uncouples the pedals in the event of a shunt. With luck, the worst thing that will happen to you in a Mazda6 is that you will regularly commit karakuri. (It's the name of the one-lever-only system for folding the back seats flat, and it's an inspired development. In most cars, this operation can leave you feeling as though you have just tried to wrestle a chest of drawers up a spiral staircase. Here, you step away feeling smug and almost rested.)
It also comes with a slightly racier interior than its rivals - which would include the Ford Mondeo, the Honda Accord and the VW Passat - as long as your understanding of "racy" encompasses a mock-aluminum finish on the dashboard and lots of circular radio-style dials for the heating controls and the hi-fi.
Altogether, in an unthreatening kind of way, it's a fairly chic environment to sit in, though, of course, "designer" doesn't automatically mean "well-designed": a red, digital information strip runs along the top of the dash and, unfortunately, gets reflected high up on the windscreen, which in certain conditions can leave you with the somewhat distracting sensation that a ticker-tape of share prices is being beamed up into the sky, or that you are witnessing the world's first digital sunset.
Otherwise, you'll be comfy and possibly even impressed by the general absence of noise and buzz - another aspect of the car that seems to have the parent more firmly in mind, ahead of the petrolhead and autocross maniac. And, in an encouraging development for the marque, you'll remember the car when you go back to it.
The lowdown
Mazda6
Price: £14,495
Top speed: 123mph
Acceleration: 0-62 in 10.7 seconds
Consumption: 8.3l/100km
At the wheel: Angus Deayton
On the stereo: Radio 2
En route for: Cirencester
