The Mazda3 Skyactiv-X is the ideal car for an engaging trip along Scotland’s stunning roads... before you throw yourself off a six-metre cliff.

Story Stephen Corby / Photography Thomas Wielecki

 

There’s definitely something in the air in Scotland. To be fair, it’s usually rain drops, many of them so cold that they take on the solidity of frozen peas. But there’s something more to it than just the kind of bracing cold that snaps your breath away, while filling it with gasping, involuntary swear words.

While it’s not surprising that the Scots bray so much about the weather – there’s a lot of it to talk about – what is, initially, shocking is that so many human beings have chosen to live here through the ages, particularly before the invention of waterproof clothing and electricity.

But then you drive up over a rise and on to the first panoramic plateau of the Scottish Highlands, in a valley called Glen Coe, the rain pauses, just for a minute, and the huge mountains – as verdant as they are vertiginous – shrug the glowering clouds off their furry shoulders.

Glistering in the air, just above the purple-heather-soaked ground, is a huge rainbow and for a moment your chest is so filled with wonder, awe and joy that you can’t breathe. Mouths simply make a kind of whispered “Wow”. If you happen to have a photographer with you at this point, beware, because he may well combust with excitement.

We have come to this incredible, unspoilt wonderland – also home to some epoch-shifting inventions, such as television, the telephone and the Watt steam engine – to test out an incredible innovation that aims, in part, to help keep this fragile environment, and our febrile planet, healthy and beautiful.

 

The scenery on the wet and wild Isle of Skye can be as bleak as it is beautiful

 

Mazda’s Skyactiv-X engine is a pioneering piece of technology and, unlike other motoring innovations – ABS, satellite navigation, airbags – which are generally rolled out in expensive models first, this one is available in an affordable Mazda3.

The Skyactiv-X is a world-first 2.0-litre engine that combines diesel-style compression technology – to provide better economy and low-down torque – with a free-revving petrol engine, which is also made smoother with a touch of mild-hybrid battery tech.

The result is a car that is fun and involving to drive, and capable of truly incredible fuel economy. The Euro-spec Mazda3 we’re driving drinks an official 4.5 litres per 100km, and has an even more impressive CO2 emissions figure of just 96g/km (compared with 144g/km for an equivalent, non Skyactiv-X engine).

The how of what Mazda has done here is impressive and complex, but it is the why that is more telling.

No other car company has managed to bring this engine technology to market, not because they don’t want to, but because it is hard. While many auto makers see the benefit in reducing the emissions produced by their industry, most are taking a long-term view and focusing on electric vehicles, which may take decades yet to have any sizeable impact on global car fleets.

Mazda is taking a different approach and looking at what can be done today, to reduce emissions from the kinds of cars people are still actually buying – those with internal-combustion engines. That is why the Skyactiv-X engine is so important.

 

Skyactiv-X Mazda3 proves an enticing companion on the open road and in the back streets of Edinburgh 

 

We set out from the capital Edinburgh, one of those rare cities unspoilt by the passage of time or the invention of modern architecture, and head for the Isle of Skye – a destination that just seems to make sense for a Skyactiv-X adventure (we’ll apply the X for Xtreme sports part when we get there, by leaping, lemming-like, into the North Atlantic Ocean).

I keep a close eye on the fuel gauge, which seems to be broken because it simply refuses to drop, and a keen ear on BBC Radio Scotland. I know I’m not alone in finding the Scottish accent both lyrical and hugely amusing, and I’m rewarded during the traffic report with “a wee delay” due to “standing water”.

In the end, it takes 280km of driving – encompassing eye-popping scenery, 3,542 photography stops and almost no freeway cruising – before the fuel gauge edges downwards. At that point, the distance-to-empty readout is still promising a further range of 550km.

Because almost all of the roads we are driving are wending, single-lane affairs – made more colourful by occasional narrowing, marked by signs that warn of “Oncoming traffic in middle of road” – I get plenty of opportunity to put the stylish and sporty Mazda3 hatchback through its paces.

A screen advises me what the SPCCI – or ‘Spark Controlled Compression Ignition’ – of the Skyactiv-X is up to, as it switches between spark-plug ignition and diesel-style compression-ignition methods as required.

The result is an engine that sings far more sweetly than any diesel, but with the same low-down punch when required for overtaking, or hills, blended with a spirited character that delights in being revved.

It’s a powerplant that marries perfectly with the sporty, sparky nature of the latest Mazda3, while maintaining the low levels of noise, vibration and harshness for which this model has been widely lauded. I am, in short, having one of those great days of driving, the kind you wish could go on forever.

Just as well, because it takes us almost nine hours – including a short stop to admire the postcard-perfect Eilean Donan Castle on the marshy shores of Loch Alsh – to cover the 580km from Edinburgh to Portree, the tiny centre of the Isle of Skye. (At day’s end, the on-board computer is reporting a fuel economy figure of 5.9 litres per 100km, which is very impressive indeed.)

The scenery on this wet and wild island looks truly volcanic. Shards of mountain spear out of the ground, all coursed through with what seems like hundreds of rushing waterfalls, as all that rain answers gravity’s call.

A local farmer, whose name I have no hope of understanding, tells us it feels like the Earth is always shifting beneath his feet. “’N yeet, y’wouldnae creed it, but ee nairy hab earf quakes,” I think he says.

He points to a spectacular rock face in the distance and tells us that half of it has fallen off in the past year.

Seems like a safe place to go and leap off some cliffs then, which is what we do the next day with the team at Skye Adventure, who’ve been running a rather unique activity called “coasteering”, for the past eight years. This involves taking advantage of the coastline’s sheer, rocky edges and deep water by throwing tourists off them.

 

The locals have developed thick coats to deal with the weather (top left). Portree (above) is absolutely stunning

 

Fortunately, they dress you up in a thick wetsuit first, plus rubber booties, a helmet and a hugely helpful flotation device.

It seems like sheer, shivering madness at first, but when you try it, it’s hard not to be fizzed by the adrenaline, consumed by the adventure and thrilled by getting up close and salty with the rugged scenery.

Hauling yourself up out of the furious ocean is slightly less fun than hurling yourself into it from as much as six metres in the air, while the unexpected spot of underwater caving – which spits you out into an incredible walled lagoon – is unforgettable.

HOW SKYACTIV-X WORKS

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While almost every other car company is seeking to reduce emissions by downsizing engines and adding turbochargers, Mazda’s focus is on “right-sizing” instead. The Skyactiv-X is, in essence, a 2.0-litre, four-cylinder petrol engine, but a unique one. To achieve fuel economy gains of 20 per cent, combined with increases of torque of between 10 and 30 per cent, the company invented Spark Controlled Compression Ignition.

Under heavy loads – ie when you want maximum response from a full throttle application – the Skyactiv-X runs like a petrol engine using the spark plugs, but the other 80 per cent of the time it operates like a diesel and so is very economical. The switch between these two methods is imperceptible from the driver’s seat.

The addition of a mild-hybrid system, involving batteries that are charged up when you brake or get off the throttle, also saves fuel, and makes operation of the start-stop system much smoother.

We head back to Portree, feeling exhausted and exhilarated and surely deserving of some special reward, which we find at the Scorrybreac Restaurant.

Run by the young-looking and prodigiously talented chef Calum Munro, Scorrybreac is a true fine dining experience, and the wait staff spend much of their time turning away potential customers who didn’t book. Housed in, well, a house, there are few tables, and you all sit within sniffing distance of the kitchen, but we score the best seats, in front a picture window gifting us a view of Portree’s absurdly pretty harbour as the sunset shimmers gold over its colourful waterfront buildings.

The food is truly worthy of the setting, with my venison tartare with burnt heather aioli tasting as unique as Scotland itself, and matched only by the majesty of my peach, white chocolate and elderflower dessert. A few more meals like this and I wouldn’t need a wetsuit to jump in the North Atlantic.

Our accommodation at Skeabost Hotel is almost as impressive. It’s a grand house filled with fireplaces, overstuffed couches, a vast selection of Scottish liquor, and, in my room a four-poster bed. Plus there’s a bathroom so big I could give my Mazda3 a wash in it.

 

 

“Calum Munro’s Scorrybreac Restaurant is a fine dining experience, with the food worthy of the superb setting”

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It is with absolutely no surprise at all that we wake on the final day of our Skye-high adventure to discover squalling rains being thrown at us from every angle by cold, cussed winds. Fortunately, as we head south I feel safe and warm and occasionally hugely smug as I see some clearly demented people ride past on motorcycles.

However, Scottish weather is so changeable that it makes Melbourne look like Alice Springs, and we are occasionally treated to sunny breaks in which it truly seems that the hills come alive, possibly to the sound of bagpipes. The sight of some vast rainbows does, however, cause some erratic driving, as people dive off the road to grab their cameras. Still, it does give my on-board photographer a lot more opportunities.

On our return journey through Glen Coe – which may well be the most picturesque place I’ve ever visited – we are blessed with a rare sunny break, and as I stand on the sodden roadside, spinning slowly to take it all in, I feel minuscule among all this majesty, yet somehow enlarged from within by the grandeur, which is so tangible it feels like you could breathe it in.

There really is something in the air in Scotland.