Entries tagged with “mazda” from Car & Caboodle

Name:  Clay Nichols

Where I live:  Austin, Texas

Our Family Car:  2003 Mazda MPV

Number of Kids:  3

Ages:  9, 6, 3

The Car: Mazda CX -9

First Impressions: This car is a "he". An attractive and athletic dude. He's well endowed but totally unpretentious, smart but not a geek. He's clearly going to be popular and you can't help but want to hang with him since he's cooler than so many other cars on your choice list. He's still keeping it real though. Did I mention he's very attractive?

Click on the extended post to read all the details and see several photos of the Mazda CX-9 in action 

I know plenty of 16-year olds spending time mastering Guitar Hero, but just one Andrew Angelloti who converted his gas-running '88 Mazda pickup truck to run solely on electric.  What's your teenager doing? [via Engadget]

Name: Michelle Cowan

Location:Florida, USA
Our Family Car: 2002 Mazda MPV
Number of Kids: 2
Ages: 5 & 3

Thing I love most about my car:The automatic sliding doors

What we call the car:
I call it "The Bus" as in,"Hurry up, The Bus is leaving right now"

I don't leave home without:
Sunglasses

Longest road trip with kids:
Orlando, Florida to Charleston, South Carolina

Favorite driving music when alone:
80's radio

Favorite driving music with kids in the car:
Jimmy Buffet (or as my 3 year old says:  Jimmy Buffalo), the Cars Soundtrack

Worst car moment:
Dead battery at 8:00 at night after coming out of a restaurant.  Husband left the lights on, just for the record.

Car snack of choice:
Pretzels

Last car before kids:
Nissan Altima

Weirdest item in the family car right now:
A pile of vacuum-resistant glitter from a school project brought home several months ago.

Drive thru dining?:
Sort of.  We use the drive-thru, but I make them wait until we get home to eat.

Funniest backseat fight between your kids was:
Whether the words to the Laurie Berkner song are "Drive Your Truck" (yes) or "Drag Your Troll" (uh, no)

Oldest food item found in car:
Petrified raisins

My next car will really be a:
Vehicle with a sensor that tells me who actually started the backseat fight.  Oh, and something with a DVD player would be nice.

Visit Michelle's online store specializing in clothing for boys at www.mylittleducks.com.

We're new and we're just getting started.  Here's a few upcoming car reviews we're working on:

• Mazda CX-9
• Toyota Highlander Hybrid
• Mazda Tribute HEV
• Pontiac Vibe

If you have a car you'd like us to review, leave it in our comments section.  Thanks!

One of the reasons we launched Car & Caboodle started with a road trip we took when our daughter was just seven weeks old.  We were offered the chance to try out a new 2007 Mazda CX-9 and drive it from Carmel, California to Los Angeles.  Despite concern about how our newborn daughter would take to a 6-hour car ride, the CX-9 was one of the cars we were considering to buy, and this seemed like a great way to see if we really liked the car.

You see, since the birth of our daughter, my wife and I were just beginning to consider what kind of new car we should get.  Some of the questions we asked ourselves included:

• What is the right size car for us?  A bigger car means more room for stuff, but you gotta wonder if all that stuff is necessary to schlep.
  
• What's the gas mileage?  Should we go hybrid?  With gas prices over $3 a gallon, this seems important.
  
• Can we stay hip and how do we avoid a minivan?  We're not going to be one of those families, are we?
  
• Will the car have room for both our baby and Labrador Retriever?  Pre-baby, we took our dog to the beach, on hikes, and to dog parks.  Is it possible to still do that in one car with our baby?
  
• Does it have driver side memory seats?  For us, this is a highly personal issue, maybe not for you, but we love it when we don't have to readjust the seat, mirrors and steering wheel every time we switch drivers.
• Does the car seat fit in the back row?  We found out that in some cars, a car seat in the back meant sacrificing passenger legroom in the front. 
  

As for our road trip, there are reasons why the CX-9 won Motor Trends SUV of the Year.  The design details, the power, and the room for lots of baby gear makes this a good car choice for families.  With its third row option, there's room for your children's friends, and still some usable storage behind it.  My one drawback is that the car's sleek design lines and powerful engine doesn't necessarily match the softer steering feel.  When I mentioned this to Mazda, they told me that their smaller CX-7 had a sportier ride while the CX-9 was designed for a more luxurious ride.  Overall, we enjoyed our road trip, took longer breaks to feed our daughter along the way, and thought that the CX-9 was a worthy choice to consider for our family.

Best of all, the road trip started the conversation that launched Car & Caboodle.

Related CX-9 Links:
Official CX-9 Website [Mazda USA]
Our Road Trip Photos [via Flickr]
CX-9 lets suburbanites ditch safari dreams [MSNBC]
Rigors of Extreme Camping No Match for Crossover [Mother Proof]

At first glance you have to love the styling of the Mazda CX-9 SUV Crossover.  Motor Trend just awarded the CX-9 it's coveted 2008 SUV of the Year Award.

The CX-9 reigned supreme out of a diverse crowd of 11 contenders, one of the highest quality fields Motor Trend has seen since it started evaluating sport/utilities. A category once reserved for a few off-road specialists, the sport/utility or crossover class now offers a vehicle for practically any driver, from almost any automaker. Angus MacKenzie, editor in chief of Motor Trend , noted that this year's field, while smaller than last year's, includes significant new entries, including the best Buick in decades-"not just the best Buick SUV, but the best Buick, period"-and a Hyundai that may have car buyers think twice about Lexus.

Mazda's victory, however, was a unanimous decision by the panel of judges.