'09 Mazda6 amps up the power; it's zippier, roomier, looks great

— -- Mazda says it redesigned its Mazda6 midsize sedan to fix everything people found wrong with the earlier model and to make it nice enough for move-down buyers leaving luxury cars for mainstream price tags and regular-grade gasoline bills.

So what was wrong with the old one, a commendable car that Ford Motor used as the basis for its popular Fusion?

In Mazda's surveys of people who considered a Mazda6 but bought something else, 25.1% cited a lack of quality, 16.5% cited lack of power and 15% cited lack of size.

Thus, the new 2009 — the firewall is the only piece of metal carried over, Mazda says — is bigger, better built, quieter, better equipped. And significantly more powerful.

Still, the 170-horsepower Mazda base four-cylinder engine is overmatched by the fours in chief rivals Honda Accord (177 hp and 190 hp) and Nissan Altima (175 hp). Mazda expects 75% of buyers to choose the four.

As for luring well-heeled folks boarding the less-is-more bandwagon? They might not find the sweet, luxurious grace they seek.

Driving three test cars — a four-cylinder with manual transmission, a four with automatic and a V-6 automatic — spotlighted these hits and misses:

• Styling. Marvelous. Not tortured, no gratuitous trim or sculpting. Clean flanks, tail and schnoz. Applause.

• Power. The V-6 steps out like Cap'n Billy's brand-new Whiz-Bang. It's so much fun to floor it that you'll surely ruin any hope of good fuel economy. But you'll smile a lot.

The V-6 is a Ford design Mazda tweaks and makes in Japan. The four, sufficient if not exciting, is a Mazda powerplant used by Ford.

Ford owns 33.4% of Mazda, enough for control, and the two share hardware.

The Japanese six-speed automatic transmission mated to the V-6 upshifted well but paused distressingly before downshifting under hard acceleration, as when passing another car. Mazda tried but said it couldn't duplicate the delay. The five-speed auto with the four-banger had no such delay.