Never-before-rated Mazda CX-9 enters the ANCAP ledger with 5 stars

Leading independent vehicle safety advocate, the Australasian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP), today awarded the new Mazda CX-9 the top safety rating of 5 stars.

The seven-seat SUV - which goes on sale in Australia this week and New Zealand in September - is the first generation of CX-9 to be awarded an ANCAP safety rating. Previous CX-9 models were unrated.

“This is the first time we’ve subjected the CX-9 to the ANCAP crash test process,” said ANCAP Chief Executive Officer, Mr James Goodwin.

“For a large, heavy vehicle, it performed extremely well in each of the destructive tests and comfortably achieved a 5 star ANCAP safety rating.”

The CX-9 scored well in the areas of whiplash and pedestrian protection – each assessed as providing ‘Good’ levels of performance.

“Safety is an important consideration for buyers in this class as this model is likely to be used to transport children and other family members.”

“CX-9 buyers have previously gone without a rating so we have filled this gap with safety savvy consumers now able to enter the showroom with confidence knowing all new variants offer the top level of safety.”

The new CX-9 provides head-protecting side curtain airbags for all three seating rows, blind spot monitoring, rear cross traffic alert and low-speed autonomous emergency braking (AEB City) as standard across the model range.

High-speed AEB (AEB Interurban), adaptive cruise control (ACC), lane support systems (LSS), adaptive front lighting and fatigue warning however are only available on top-spec Azami variants.

The outgoing CX-9 is one of the top selling unrated models.