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A 1999 Mazda Millenia sedan arrived just about the time Ms. Nature got surly again. Snow everywhere. Streets slick. Only 4WD trucks and sport-utes maneuvering on the roadway.

We had two options, park it and leave it, or drive it and leave it the first time it ventured into a ditch. We found ourselves driving it and enjoying it. This is not a 4WD machine, but it did an admirable job of staying on the road when others around it didn’t.

The Millenia, like just about every Mazda except the Miata, is one of the least-known, least-appreciated, least-promoted cars in the market. Mazda had been so hard up for cash the last few years before Ford stepped to the rescue, that it has just about become invisible.

Too bad. Millenia comes with traction control that kept us traveling in a straight line without wavering, whether it was moving from a stoplight or rounding a corner in the subdivision or making a tight turn on the open road.

Pleasant surprise.

No, we didn’t travel the speed limit when the roads were treacherous, but we were able to travel the roads when others left their cars in the driveway.

Millenia is powered by a 2.3-liter, 210-h.p., 24-valve V-6, which on those few occasions when the roads were suitable for normal travel stepped quickly and quietly from the light. Yet the mileage is 20 m.p.g. city/28 m.p.g. highway, a rating you’d expect from a smaller economy car, not a larger luxury machine.

The suspension was a pleasant surprise as well. Soft enough to keep normal roadway bumps from filtering back into the cabin, firm enough to keep the sedan on an even keel in corners and turns.

And there’s lots of standard equipment, such as leather interior; power driver and passenger seats; climate control; Bose sound system with cassette and CD player; 17-inch, all-season tires; power moonroof; power windows and locks; tilt steering wheel (which retracts when the key is removed to allow easier exit); rear window defogger; dual power mirrors; and carpeted mats.

What Millenia doesn’t have, and needs, is a reputation for quality, dependability, reliability and durability. These attributes need to be earned and hopefully will become more evident the longer Mazda is associated with Ford and Ford provides the expertise–as well as the dollars.

Let’s not forget what happened to Jaguar when Ford stepped in and opened its coffers. The butt of jokes for years, Jaguar has folks strolling to the showroom again because they expect it to last longer than the monthly payments.

Millenia is a rival to the Lexus ES300. The ES300 starts at $30,905, the Millenia we tested starts at $31,045. Options added were two-tone paint at $380 and a four-season package with heated seats, heavy-duty battery, heated, outside mirrors, heavy-duty windshield wiper motor and larger capacity windshield washer tank at $300, and freight at $450 to bring the sticker to $32,175.