Jinba...Ittai?

Remember when we said we’d write about our trip to Canada? Well, here it is.

Upon arriving at the National car rental at YVR, we were greeted by a massive queue and staff shuttling cars from a remote lot. One of the perks of choosing National is the freedom to pick your own ride from a selection (Hertz offers this now too, but National is the OG in this game). However, with the massive crowd and no cars left to choose from, that privilege vanished—the site manager started handing out cars to the next person in line, unless someone had a special request like an SUV.

Considering we were four people loaded with luggage and equipment, we joined the SUV waiting list. We had our sights set on a big SUV from the get-go, but after 20 minutes of waiting (and watching some prime vehicles get snagged by others in front of us), we decided to settle for a RAV4. Just as we fired up the Toyota, a Ford Expedition rolled into the lot. Our driver didn't hesitate—he jumped out and sprinted to the manager, hoping we could swap for that beast of a truck. Simultaneously, the driver of a Mazda CX-90 rolled down their window with the same idea. They mentioned they were heading to a wedding with a ton of luggage, so a bigger vehicle was a must.

As the site manager pondered this predicament, we quickly suggested a trade with the wedding duo—we'd take their Mazda, and they'd get the Expedition. Our car-obsessed driver was thrilled; he'd been itching to get behind the wheel of the new Mazda inline-6.

CX-90 is definitely the biggest and heaviest (over 2 tons!) Mazda that any of us had ever driven. Mazda, self-define as a sporty brand (Japanese BMW?), has a tradition to associate their driving experience with horseriding, but the carrying capability of CX-90 definetly makes it more like a mule. Unlike the previous generation CX-9, CX-90 comes with a 3.3L turbo-charged inline-6 engine that produces 280 or 340 horsepower, depending on the trim you get. We think we got a standard trim - judging from the fact the decoration plate on the fender is not chromed, but the power was quite sufficient to conquer the hilly roads of Vancouver.

Transimission was a difference story. The car we got only had over a thousand kilometers on the meter but the gear-shiftting already became messy - sounds more like an inherent issue. Shiftting between the first four gears was always sloppy, usually comes with a knock. That had quite annoyed us in the city.

On the highway, the handling went well. It does feel heavy, which is not a bad thing since many Mazdas have their steering too light - comparing to BMW, if you want to think that way.

Space-wise, it's very good. After only the first few hours, we were so glad that we didn't take the RAV4. It was already risky when we first decided to drive the RAV4, since we didn't have all of luggages when we picked up the car - our team arrived via three flights and one of our guys got delayed so bad they had to met us later at hotel. So we basically only had 1/3 of our totall luggage when we were at National, not counting the print overs and other supplies we planned to purchase in Canada. Luckily, things fit into CX-90 just perfect.

We had one shooting location at UBC, one at the mountain top of Whistler, and two in between. This gave us the perfect opportunity to travel along the stunning Sea-to-Sky Highway.

The CX-90 performed well on the mountain roads, though we wouldn’t call it a joy to drive—it’s still a mule, not a horse. Its longer nose makes cornering a bit stubborn, but the handling and throttle response compensate for it well (as long as the gear doesn’t kick down). Most of the time, we were overtaking other cars—something unimaginable if we had been driving the Expedition.

By the way, our driver mentioned that he once got caught speeding in BC when he was younger—he was driving a 9th-gen Impala and hit 180 km/h. (Holy shit, can that car even go that fast?)

The Umbrella Bar on top of Whistler Mountain wasn’t a planned shoot—we were simply looking for lunch at the Roundhouse Lodge, but all the seating was full. The bar had available seats with a drink purchase, so we sat down and secured a table.

We placed the frame on the table since it was the only secure spot, then left our photographer to hold the table while the rest of us went to get food. Taking the opportunity, he test-shot a few photos, and in the end, we decided to use some because they turned out great.

The final location was in Kamloops, which meant driving through Duffey Lake Road at night instead of returning to Vancouver and taking the Coquihalla Highway—the same place where our driver got caught speeding in his younger days. A bit of a pity, really, since the scenery along Duffey Lake Road is breathtaking, and we had to miss it all in the dark.

The mule once again proved its capability as a mule—there were some steep climbs along the road, and the CX-90 handled them all with ease, even with four people and luggage on board. The engine sounded amazing in the high-rev range, filling the silence whenever the music cut out—there were stretches where the cellular signal went completely dark, leaving us without Spotify.

It wouldn’t feel complete without a bit of off-roading in an SUV review. Luckily, Kamloops gave us the chance.

For our final shoot, we had to head into Lac Du Bois Grasslands, where the trails are all unpaved. We tested the off-road driving mode, which we believe only adjusts throttle and transmission settings—but at this level, it's really the suspension that makes the difference. It's not bad at all for a sporty-tuned SUV, though you do need to watch out for the front clearance (as you can see in the photo below).

We dropped off two of our team members at Kamloops Airport, where they boarded a Dash-8, wobbling back to Vancouver before transferring to the States.

Meanwhile, our driver and photographer continued the trip to Banff for their own media project. Eventually, we returned the car at YYC, where we witnessed something bizarre—staff at the rental car center were using a "dent panel."

A dent panel is essentially a large, backlit board that highlights even the slightest imperfections on the car’s surface. We had never seen a rental place this strict about return inspections before. Wondering what happened to Canada in these years.

After getting back home, our driver still missed the car—he even visited the Mazda dealership a couple of times. He had the chance to drive a CX-50 during another trip, but he said it was incomparable. Guess we really picked the right car for this trip. So far, it’s the best among all the rentals we've used for the trips already revealed in the gallery: Chevrolet Bolt, Tesla Model 3, two Hyundai Sonatas, and a Dodge Challenger V6 (though if it had been a V8, that might be a different story).

This was also our biggest shooting project to date, and it feels like it was all worth it. The Migratory Series is something special to us, and we’re committed to keeping it going. There will be another grand tour when the next five designs come out—let’s see what kind of mule we end up with next time.