Step back in time with Mazda CX-80

Here’s a terrifying fact. At 50mph – which isn’t that fast is it? – your car will travel 73ft in a single second.

Even more worrying is that according to the NCAP crash test people when you are trying to use the latest touchscreen paraphernalia that afflicts our cars driver takes his/her eyes off the road for anything from five seconds to 50.

That means while you are flapping about with your left arm, attached to which is a hand with less dexterity if you happen to be right handed, you have travelled between 365ft and 3,650ft.

To put that in context, in five seconds you will have travelled the length of a football pitch and times that by 10 for the worst case scenario. How do we not crash every single time we drive?

I’ve lost count of the near dos I’ve had faffing with essential controls. You, quite rightly, can’t use a phone at the wheel but you have to operate what essentially is a tablet. It’s madness.

But I’m noticing that the automotive world is waking up to this fact as buttons and switches make a welcome return on many models for major functions, the swipy stuff reserved for the ancillaries – it’s reinventing the wheel and thank goodness.

Sensibly, Mazda has never really bought into this dangerous trend and it’s why the brand remains a firm favourite with me. The interior of the latest models, including the CX-80, actually looks retro and is so much better for it.

I don’t want a widescreen telly for a dashboard which overloads my senses with too much superfluous information, I want a cockpit, complete with clocks and dials, which is what you get with a Mazda and many of the controls are easily accessible on the steering wheel itself.

You also get a gloriously appointed fascia with switches and buttons that extend down the transmission tunnel to fall easily at hand.

There’s a big knob which operates a load of functions on the centrally mounted TFT screen and that is so much easier to operate safely when you are driving. At least if you do glance at the screen you are looking in the right direction not downwards.

This really does take the strain out of your day to day journeys and the time spent with the CX-80 is completely free from near dos.

With no distractions you can enjoy the many merits of the CX-80, the biggest in Mazda’s SUV stable.

It is a gargantuan 4×4, a real whopper, housing three rows and seven seats. It’s massive yet doesn’t feel it to drive and the thing that leaps out is just how stable it feels, absolutely rock solid on the road.

For such a leviathan it steers, grips and rides perfectly too and given that the 2.5 litre petrol hybrid has 327PS in the tank it is a much more rapid mover than a vehicle this size ought to be. How about 0-62mph in 6.8 seconds? Now that is impressive.

As it is a plug-in hybrid the fuel figures and emissions are crazy too – 176.6 MPG and 35g/km CO2 respectively. Even when the charge runs out you can achieve 40+.

To look at CX-80 is a larger version of the excellent CX-60, is exceptionally smart and boasts bags of road presence as a result.

If you have experience of seven-seaters you’ll know that things can get a bit cramped and the boot can be virtually non-existent. But CX-80 is 25cm longer than the CX-60, itself no titch, so there is a proper amount of room on the back bench and there’s space for luggage as well.

Like all Mazdas, CX-80 oozes quality in every way. It is tactile inside and out, it feels beautifully built and you know it will last forever.

If you did have a prang you feel you’d happily survive but the way the controls are set out you are much less likely to have a bump in the first place, so it gets my vote.