My recent trip to visit Mazda Headquarters and factory had a profound impact on me. Visiting Hiroshima in Japan and watching vehicles come off the assembly line, gave me a profound appreciation for Mazda’s engineering of its vehicles. The Mazda CX-5 is assembles at the plant in Hiroshima, Japan and I got to spend a week in the Signature AWD model in Metropolitan Washington DC. The signature model features; Nappa leather, 8-way power driver seat, a Bose 10 speaker sound system, a navigation system, android auto and apple carplay, among a long list of standard features. The CX-5 has found affection in my family as a cousin of mine recently bought a Touring AWD model. She added the aforementioned Bose sound system and sunroof as an option which provided a great value to what has been a great vehicle purchase. The signature model I drove has a 2.5 L turbo engine which makes 227 HP and 310 – lb-ft of torque. It is matted to a 6-speed automatic transmission and gets an EPA rated 27 MPG on the highway. Base price on the signature AWD model is $36,890. For more information visit www.mazdausa.com