The center armrest is a tricky thing. As a passenger, you want to possess it. It’s like the Girl Scout cookies that you must have all to yourself. It is a place of comfort, a refuge from the bags you carry, the weights you lift, the suitcases you lug around. The last thing you want to do is fight the driver for access.
And yet that is exactly what you must do in the 2014 Mazda CX-9. Access to the armrest is split down the middle, so you have two cellar doors instead of one flip top. The problem comes when the driver wants to open the armrest to say, access the USB port, and the passenger wants to rest his weary forearm on the soft padded surface.
The driver could open their side of the cellar door, except reaching over the open cellar door and into the storage space is awkward. Instead, the driver will most likely opt to open the passenger side cellar door, and will then probably end up in a spat with the passenger that may or may not escalate to blows.
Check out Roman and Nathan taking the 2013 Mazda CX-9 off road in the mountains of Colorado…
Emme is a driver, reviewer, and rabble rouser. She is the principle driver and trophy winner for the Mega Monkey Motorsports™ 2 seat 1600 desert racer, powered by an air-cooled VW engine and has also been on the podium in a stock bug, a trophy bug, and an ultra-4. She is one of only 13 American women to have participated in the Rallye Aicha des Gazelles, a 9 day all female off road rally in Morocco with no GPS. You can check her out online on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and either one of her blogs
