Category: Small Family 
Price Range: £11,950 to £19,900
Taut, responsive handling, lively engines, nicely built out of well-fitting components, improved refinement from summer 2006.
Slightly overworked styling, not as roomy as it looks, still doesn't look that inspiring or sporty.
More fun to drive than you'd expect, but not quite an object of desire.
The pre-revision Mazda 3s (2003-06) had hard, often unforgiving suspension, but the new wheels, tyres and revised suspension has made them both quieter and smoother - refinement has been improved and the 3 is now a comfortable long-distance cruiser.
The seats are comfortable and supportive with their sporty-flavoured bolstering, the steering wheel is leather-covered in most models (a Ford-driven feature, stressing the importance of the hand/car interface), and the automatic air con, where fitted, works well. It's odd that the translucent rotary control knobs have no markings, though - you have to look up to a liquid crystal display to see what you've selected and the buttons can be fiddly.
This is a long car - 14ft 6in - by the standards of its class and the wheelbase is also longer than most in the class. But rear legroom is no better than average and a passenger sat behind a six-foot-plus driver might be short of knee space. Some of the length is taken up by a rear bumper that protrudes a long way back from the boot opening and covers nothing but empty space. The boot itself seems shallow until you discover a second layer of storage beneath the boot mat, in the form of a moulded tray with space for a first aid kit, the wheelbrace and other small items. In real terms, though, the boot is cavernous, helped by the body's extra rear overhang. The rear seats' backrests fold down on to the cushions to make a flat load platform level with the boot's false floor, though they don't do any clever tumbling/sliding tricks.
Rear headroom is good in the hatchback, less so in the slope-roof saloon; that car also lacks the underfloor boot tray so there's a step in the load floor with the seat backrests folded down.
The glovebox is unusually big, with a handbook holder in the drop-down door and various other 'intelligent storage solutions' include a double cupholder in the centre tunnel, next to the handbrake and double-decker centre armrests.
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wrote on 16 12 2006