Next fall, Mazda will enter a new segment in the United States with the Mazda5, a crossover between a wagon and a small minivan.

Though a perfect fit for Europe and Japan, the Mazda5 is a risk for the United States because of its small size. Although Mazda says the vehicle will seat six adults, the Mazda5 wheelbase is just 108 inches, and the overall length is 177 inches. That's even smaller than the Mazda MPV, which has a 111.8-inch wheelbase and 187.8-inch length.

The U.S. version will use the Mazda3's optional 2.3-liter inline-four engine, which makes 160 hp. Europe gets a choice of a 1.8-liter or 2.0-liter gasoline engine or a 2.0-liter diesel engine.

The Mazda5 will share much of its architecture with the Europe-market Ford Focus C-Max, said Joe Bakaj, Mazda Motor Corp. executive officer in charge of design and product development. Doing that gave Mazda the starting points for the suspension settings and the basis for its crash testing.

But Mazda made the suspension sportier than that of the Focus C-Max. And while the C-Max has swing-open doors, the Mazda5 has sliding rear doors.

Mazda chose to use sliders because of its market research of U.S. buyers. They said they didn't like their children swinging their doors into neighboring cars. They also disliked loading a child seat through the narrow opening of a swing-open door, Bakaj said.

Although Mazda will sell a seven-seat version of the car in Europe, the United States will get only the six-seater initially, in three rows of two seats. Bakaj said market research responses dictated the choice to go with six seats and a second-row step-through.

Mazda figures that adding cool features will attract young buyers starting families. The second- and third-row seats fold flat, and the second-row seat bottoms flip away to expose storage areas underneath. Seventeen-inch wheels are standard.

Mazda expects to sell about 20,000 units annually. Bakaj said the Mazda5 will be priced starting around $18,000.

http://www.autoweek.com/news.cms?newsId=100895

Interestingly enough, this is the production version of the MX-Flexa concept mentioned in this thread. It's certainly more of a European type vehicle but maybe, just maybe, people over here will go for it if it's done right. Oh and in Europe they call cars like this, "space wagons."

And technically this is not a new segment for the US market; cars like the Nissan Axxess and Mitsubishi Expo (a.k.a. Plymouth Colt Vista and Eagle Summit Wagon) are essentially the same form factor, but those haven't been sold for about 10 years.