Mazda 3. A bold design direction
Where Do You Live?
Every car manufacturer out there seems to changing anything and everything about every model of car they produce. All of Mazda’s competitors have turned up the horsepower, retooled the interior, lowered the miles per gallon and increased the size of the engine – all in the effort of increasing sales, but if you were sitting on a goldmine product why would you bother changing very much?
The Mazda3 is, by far, the most popular car that Mazda produces – the 3 accounts for between one third and one half of all of Mazda’s sales. The new model holds relatively true to the previous versions, and why shouldn’t it – it’s always been a spectacular automotive specimen.
That’s not to say that Mazda didn’t make any changes at all with the new 3 – they did change the “face” a bit by reshaping both the grill and the headlights into what is reminiscent of a smiling visage – this change in lines does affect the overall look a bit, but not enough to make most people shy away from buying it.
What’s on the Inside Counts
Under the hood is a little more power than the previous version, coming in at just under one hundred and fifty horses and capable of going from zero to sixty in right around twelve seconds.Its a given. Mazda would always claim this as the best 3 to date. They are not entirely off the truth.
The big smiling grill might be the most obvious change, but Mazda did add a few elements of surprise to the interior of the new 3 as well. The dashboard’s new appearance can be summed up in one word – clean, it’s free of any unnecessary clutter that you might find with other cars in the class. Think of it as a shrunken down version of the dashboard in the Mazda6.
Mazda has also added a steering wheel mounted satellite navigation system with push button controls. On first use this system might not seem like the most convenient, because it’s only accessible to the driver and with no experience it can seem just a little awkward to work, but within a few trial runs anyone who can work their remote control at home shouldn’t really have any problems “navigating” the navigation system.
The question on many driver’s minds remains – has Mazda done enough to stay competitive with the other heavy hitters in the class that made major changes for this year (like Volkswagen’s Golf), and the simple answer is yes. The average user rating remains in the neighborhood of 31/2 to 4 stars out of four – the 3 is at or near the head of its class when it comes to miles per gallon (25 city/33 highway), performance, handling and safety. It’s the same car that everyone who’s driven has been in love with since around the turn of the century, it’s smooth, sleek and fun to drive – Mazda only made changes where they thought changes were necessary and that just so happened to be not very many places at all.
Mazda has managed to put out another winner by making just a few minor changes to their already stellar representative, and they made those changes while keeping the price lower than that of their major competition in the class, the VW Golf.
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