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Sexing Up the Efficient Four-Cylinder Midsize Sedan
Four-door coupes are a state of mind, not a state of reality. The four-passenger 2009 Volkswagen CC Sport is no more a four-door coupe than a conventional five-seat sedan like the 2009 Mazda 6 i Grand Touring. Yet both of these midsize sedans are cool in a way that normally eludes front-wheel-drive, four-cylinder family sedans.
We think this has more to do with how the Mazda 6 and VW CC look than how they drive. That's not to say that they don't handle crisply or ride smoothly or accelerate predictably. They do all of that. But nothing that happens in the cockpit is quite so striking as the Volkswagen CC's continuously curvy roof line or the Mazda 6's cat-eye headlamps and bulging fenders.
Style, not performance, is what defines the 2009 Mazda 6 i Grand Touring and 2009 Volkswagen CC Sport. And if you're realistic about the kind of life a $30,000 commuter car is supposed to lead, you'll be OK with this compromise.
Almost Nobody Buys a V6
Of course, we could have injected a lot more performance into this test simply by choosing a Mazda 6 s Grand Touring with the 272-horsepower 3.7-liter V6 and a Volkswagen CC VR6 Sport with the 280-hp 3.6-liter V6. A V6-equipped Mazda 6 hits 60 mph in just 6.4 seconds (6.1 with 1 foot of rollout as on a drag strip), and a V6 VW CC will go there in 6.6 seconds.
That's quick, but most of you don't care about winning entrance-ramp drag races in a front-wheel-drive midsize sedan. Mazda tells us that 73 percent of 2009 Mazda 6 buyers get the 2.5-liter four-cylinder engine rated at 170 hp at 6,000 rpm (168 hp in this PZEV test car) and 167 pound-feet of torque at 4,000 rpm (166 lb-ft in PZEV form).
Volkswagen hasn't sold enough CCs to give us any definitive answers about the engine preferences of buyers, but since the VR6 model is priced far upmarket at $39,450, we'd guess at least 90 percent of 2009 Volkswagen CCs sold in the U.S. will have the turbocharged, direct-injection 2.0-liter inline-4. It's rated at 200 hp from 5,100-6,000 rpm and 207 lb-ft of torque from 1,700-5,000 rpm.
You can have a six-speed manual gearbox on either car, but since we're dealing in practical realities here, our 2009 Mazda 6 i Grand Touring has the optional five-speed automatic transmission and the 2009 VW CC Sport has the optional six-speed automatic.
Full Story: Edmunds Inside Line - Comparison Test: 2009 Mazda 6 vs. 2009 Volkswagen CC
Two of my favorite cars....
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