The blacktop is broad and smooth, and there's nothing really close to its edge to heighten the perception of speed. The 2.3-litre MZR DISI Turbo engine of the 6 MPS doesn't feel melodramatically mad in this environment. Or, to give its proper name, Williams Corner. Especially the fast, slightly downhill and off-camber Turn 2. Despite its former F1 status, the TI Circuit is dauntingly short of run-off areas, even at road-car speeds. With grey clouds threatening more rain, we queue for our allotted first three laps of the slippery 3.7km track. When the production 6 MPS makes it to Australia, around June, each example will cost rather less than one tenth of this amount. Proper US dollars, too, so that makes the number $600,000-plus in our money. The handful of cars assembled for the exercise are all handbuilt prototypes and, we later find, very valuable. Today, the former Formula One track - famous in a small way for being the place Ayrton Senna raced a fortnight before his fatal accident at Imola in 1994 - is wet. Usually Mazda stages its preview drives at the Miyoshi proving ground, outside its hometown of Hiroshima. Fittingly, the global media introduction to the first of the line was staged at a racetrack, the TI Circuit near Okayama. MPS stands, in case you were wondering, for Mazda Performance Series. Before I explain why, let's set the scene. But trust me: that lever between the seats is rather special, chiefly for what it says about Mazda's performance-car philosophy. Handbrake isn't usually the first word you expect to read in a piece about a luscious new turbo AWD like the Mazda 6 MPS.

Views from the 6 zip mps