BRAVE MOVE

decent suburban acceleration. At country road speeds there’s less in reserve for overtaking, but for the tradies that it’s pitched at they’ll appreciate the circa-10-percent lower fuel consumption and willing nature.

Tray-back cab-chassis versions can also carry up to 1380kg courtesy of a stiffer suspension setup, while the 3000kg tow capacity is only half a tonne shy of models equipped with the 3.0-litre engine.

Priced from $39,490 with a basic tray on the back, the new XS just undercuts the auto version of the rival Isuzu, although without a manual option it misses out on the tempting entry price of its twin-under-the-skin.

With vinyl floors and a smaller infotainment screen (7.0-inch versus 9.0-inch), the 4x4 XS is basic but honest for its $52,490 ask.

Impressively, XS models don’t skimp on safety gear, matching the best utes on the market with emergency braking, lane monitoring, speed sign recognition and blind spot warning.

Along with other tweaks to the range – including the addition of a customisable cabchassis option to the XTR model as well as black bumpers to those cab chassis variants – it makes for a broad model lineup that Mazda believes will hit a sales record in 2022.

That’s in part due to increasing demand for utes, which Mazda Australia managing director Vinesh Bhindi says could even push the pickup market above 250,000 annual sales, marking almost one in four new-vehicle sales.