The 2026 Mazda CX-5 still wears two-tier daytime lamps

The new CX-5 puts its daytime light in two layers. A thin strip runs the top of each headlamp, and the lamp beneath it reaches toward the corner of the fender, with the bright Signature Wing holding the grille between those two lines. Along the leading edge of the hood, Mazda is spelled in wide letters.

That stacked signature is the face Mazda’s U.S. packaging release describes for the 2026 model: LED headlights with a two-tiered daytime-running signature flanking the Signature Wing, and a wide-set Mazda script in place of conventional badging. The same note sets the wheelbase at 110 inches and presents the wing, the lamps, the spelled-out name, and that wheelbase together as a way to show width and stability. The July reveal had already introduced the body as the third generation, with a wider, more chiseled nose and rear lamps angled so the CX-5 would sit with the CX-70 and CX-90. The lettering on the hatch is that badge change carried around back, the name written out where the emblem used to be.

On the car in that photograph the rear lamps are separate units and Mazda is spelled across the tailgate, the badge change carried to the hatch. The letters still leave the grade open, because the U.S. sheet hangs this two-tier daytime drawing on every version and saves the lighting upgrade for another name.

Where the lighting actually changes

The packaging release lists five U.S. grades — 2.5 S, Select, Preferred, Premium, and Premium Plus — and the specification deck marks i-Activ all-wheel drive on each of them, with LED daytime running lights, automatic headlamps, high-beam control, and auto-leveling LED headlights likewise standard straight through. Drive layout is not in the lamp, since all-wheel drive is the whole U.S. lineup rather than an option you can spot from the nose. Signature Illumination is the split. Mazda describes it as an upgraded daytime-running effect in the headlights and taillights, standard on Premium and Premium Plus. Adaptive front lighting is a further line, standard only on Premium Plus, and a parked car with the lamps lit does not show whether that system is on the build. What you can sort by eye, once the two-tier shape is set aside, is the black trim: piano-black lower bumpers, rocker moldings, and wheel-arch moldings on Premium and Premium Plus, and black roof rails from Preferred up, which is also where the 19-inch wheels come in.

The cars pictured here are non-U.S.-market examples of that same third-generation (KM) body, so the silver roof rails and body-color arches in the side view are not a U.S. grade. On the U.S. deck the rails are black once they appear, at Preferred, and the wheel-arch molding goes piano black at Premium.

Under that face, the U.S. 2026 launches with the Skyactiv-G 2.5, a six-speed automatic, and the standard all-wheel drive. EPA’s 2026 CX-5 page lists the 4WD at 24 city, 30 highway, and 26 combined on regular gasoline. The hybrid is the plan after this model year: the reveal says a Skyactiv-Z engine with Mazda’s hybrid system is to debut in 2027. The lamps carry neither the fuel-economy rating nor that later powertrain.