It’s really amazing what an automaker can do with a chassis these days, isn’t it? Take the Ford Motor Company, for example, or rather its Mazda subsidiary’s CX9 platform and you have one chassis that serves for three models with three different personalities.

We’ll look at each one separately, but we’ll start by saying with just one chassis, Ford has developed three vehicles for its three divisions that are as different as day is from night. The Mazda is the performer; the Ford is the family version, and the Lincoln is the luxury vehicle.

Looking at the 2011, CX-9 first, you have an all-wheel-drive/front-wheel-drive crossover whose base price is in the mid-20s and which will carry seven in its three-row seating (2/3/2).

Cargo space is reasonable, especially when you swing the rear seats into the floor, but then you lose the utility of the seven-person seating, which is a blessing if you have kids who are battling the rear seat and who need some time-out room way out back.

Looking at the lines, the Mazda is the sportiest of the three corporate siblings (in fact, engineering did most of the development work on this chassis and it is also the real basis of Volvo’s C-90, which was developed when the Swedish automaker was still a full subsidiary of Ford.

The swept lines of the Mazda CX-9 sweep from a relatively narrow cross-section through a series of nicely sculpted panels – the front fenders, lower air dam and flared fenders – the a raked windshield. These lines present a great profile to the wind.

Sweeping up from the windshield wipers, the roofline is slightly swept and angles nicely toward the well-styled rear end. The doors and rear quarters and sail panels carry the lines of the CX-9 to a nicely proportioned rear end that is neatly tied together by the rear hatch and bumper and lower valance.

Powered is delivered to the all-wheel-drive version of the CX-9 from a 273-horsepower V-6. The flexible double-overhead-cam engine is the largest we’ve seen from this automaker and it does deliver a respectable upper-11-second 0 to 60 run (it is an all-wheel-drive crossover, after all).

The six-speed automatic is nicely matched to the engine’s specific power output and will handle anything you can throw at it from sand to wet roads to some not-too-serious offroading – this is a performer not an offroader, but there’s enough ground clearance so you can take it into a field or two without worry about breaking anything underneath, unless you find a huge woodchuck hole. Then, again, these holes would likely cause some serious hurt to a Chevy Tahoe, which is made to be taken seriously offroad.

Around town, though, the ride and handling of the CX-9 are very, very respectable as it has impeccable manners and handles corners and curves easily. It also handles onramps and merges onto the Interstate with easy. So, mileage isn’t great – it’s not 40 mpg on the highway, but 24, but it’s not the kind of vehicle you’d expect to be a super econobox.

This vehicle is built for some serious family transporting with a fun quotient that’s much higher than it should be for a vehicle. This vehicle will have the drivers in your family grinning from ear to ear as will its braking ability and its comfortable ride and handling.

As noted, it is stable through turns and corners and the seats offer an amazing amount of support, but it’s something you would expect of this vehicle, now, wouldn’t you?

That it’s a member of the Ford family does bring with it some nice touches such as the SYNC system and Bluetooth and it should bring the One Touch system along sooner or later (one touch in Ford’s other chassis mates is all you need to control many systems). Still the amount of technology built into the CX-9 is impressive. You can equip it with backup warning systems; side warning systems for the blindspot (the area you just can’t see from the mirrors or by craning your head).

For the driver, the seating position is excellent with all of the key controls falling easily to hand and the full display easy to see and use. The center console and steering wheel redundancy are nice for many systems. And, if you opt for the electrically adjustable seat, any driver in your family will be able to find a good seating position quickly and easily. The seats, by the way, are very supportive.

If it looks like we liked the CX-9, we did. What’s not to like? It is:

A performer
A handler
Sports all-wheel-drive
Seats seven
Can carry large amounts with the last row of seats under the floor
Affordable, starting in the mid-20s, which is lower than the other divisions offer in vehicles with similar equipment levels.

Mazda may be the least heard Ford division – indeed, man people don’t even realize it is – but it is also one of its contenders and the CX-9 shows why.