The CX-50's design is immediately recognizable and clearly channels Mazda's "Kodo" visual language. From the front winged grille to the sleek profile, you won't mistake this for anything else in the compact crossover category—except maybe the CX-5. Even so, "The first-ever CX-50 is about inspiring drivers to find new places, experiences, and challenges that can only be discovered in the outdoors," said Yasutake Tsuchida, Senior Director of Mazda Design America.

In other words, it's more outdoorsy looking than the CX-5, with sharper lines, plastic cladding, and broader shoulders that show off its wider stance. Again, signature Mazda details abound, including the rounded headlights and taillights you'd expect to find on other CX models, but everything's a little more steroidal here. The CX-50 also gets a moody new Zircon Sand paint option, further playing up the rugged appearance without going all "Desert Tan;" later, this paint color will spread to other Mazda models.

Despite the CX-50's more off-road mission, the roof remains low enough to stay within easy reach, making the task of stacking items on the roof rails less of a struggle. For longer items that can't be stored on the roof, the rear seats fold flat and the lowered seatbacks run flush with the primary cargo floor, creating a continuous surface one can slide things across.

While rugged in appearance, the CX-50 hides traditional Mazda handling attributes within. Dave Coleman, Manager of Vehicle Dynamics for Mazda North America, explains that, in Mazda's research, even customers who go camping spend the majority of their time on pavement. "You'll spend a couple hundred miles driving on the freeway, a couple dozen miles on twisty mountain roads, and then 10 or 20 miles maybe on dirt at the very end [of a trip to a campsite]. So compromising all of that on-road driving just for a little bit of improvement off-road doesn't make a whole lot of sense, especially if you're Mazda with our expertise on-road."

That balanced idea of performance extends to the drive mode selector, dubbed Mazda Intelligent Drive Select or MI-Drive (pronounced as "My Drive"), which only has four modes: Normal, Sport, Towing, and Off-Road. Each mode tailors the standard i-Activ all-wheel-drive system, throttle response, G-Vectoring Control, transmission logic, and braking system.

"Now, when most companies do a drive mode system like this," says Coleman, "they're trying to make each drive mode distinct and different. So the car behaves differently in each mode. We kind of have the opposite approach. Mazda has a very consistent driving Dynamic that we're pursuing and we want to make sure the car behaves." In other words, the idea is to keep the CX-50's feel consistent regardless of which mode you're in.

"So," Colemans says, Mazda "turns up the G-Vectoring Control gain so that when you turn in, it helps load up those front tires enough to get it back to the weight you would normally have on those tires and normal driving." (G-Vectoring fiddles with engine torque in subtle ways to initiate some weight transfer to the front end of the car, intended for better turn-in response on regular Mazdas.) The Towing mode also preloads the AWD system just a bit but not for some rear drive, "but because we need the yaw damping that creates to damp out a little bit of the motion that the trailer creates at the back of the car."

One quick note: While the Towing mode was detailed, the CX-50's towing capacity was not. Mazda stated that this would be announced at a later time closer to its official launch.

G-Vectoring Control is also used in Off-Road mode. Unlike the off-road modes in some competitors, there is only one catch-all selection—no sand, mud, snow or any other sub-options are to be found in the CX-50. "We found it confusing off-road," said Coleman, "where real world conditions always seem to be some ambiguous combination of surfaces that land somewhere between the settings for choosing from and we firmly believe the most intelligent system in the vehicles is the driver."

"If you're off the pavement, off-road mode is the one you want. It's as simple as that," said Coleman. Again, the system is uniquely Mazda and made for driver comfort and control, leveraging G-Vectoring control to enhance handling response on loose surfaces and engaging the all-wheel-drive system earlier to maintain traction and preempt as much slippage as possible. For tackling hills, the CX-50 senses the angle and raises the idle speed for "a smoother transition from idle to torque application," per Coleman, and the torque converter lockup is delayed for smoother power delivery when pointed skyward or traversing larger obstacles; the anti-lock brake system is used to prevent the CX-50 from rolling backward at a standstill. Should the CX-50 lift a tire in the air while billy goating around, the ABS system will grab the brakes on the tire that is in the air and "slipping" so torque is sent to the opposite wheel along with the one diagonal to it.

For now, only the turbocharged and non-turbocharged 2.5-liter Skyactiv-G engines have been announced as the powertrains for the CX-50. A future hybrid model was mentioned along with other "electrified powertrains," however. When asked if this will result in an electric version of the CX-50, Mazda only says that "Currently, [it] can confirm this crossover will utilize a traditional hybrid system." For now, any other powertrains and their specifications will be released sometime before the official launch of the off-roading Mazda.

Mazda also confirms that the CX-50 will only be sold with the i-Activ AWD setup, with no front-wheel-drive model available. For the sort of buyers Mazda is chasing here, standard AWD is no bad thing.

Every CX-50 will utilize a six-speed automatic gearbox, though there was no word on a low-range gearbox for the i-Activ system in the CX-50. Unlike in other Mazdas, the AWD system does send a small amount of torque to the rear wheels even when biasing output to the front axle in lighter-duty travels, such as on the freeway.