Praise aplenty has been heaped on Mazda’s new CX-5. Variously scribes have talked about its excellent diesel engine and (especially) its “European prestige levels” of cabin finish. And there’s good reason for plaudits — it is by many measures an excellent piece of work. But it takes about two seconds flat in the cabin of Audi’s new Q3 to re-appraise how high the bar is set when you choose to benchmark best European prestige levels of fit and finish. The cabin or the German marque’s newest and smallest SUV is quite simply almost faultless.

Dash plastics; the mixed seat surfaces of leather and a perforated alcantara style fabric; the metallic touches to dash and doors… If the CX-5 did a great job (at a significantly lower price point) to approximate where the Euro standard for this type of vehicle sat, that benchmark has just been moved. Substantially!