Category: Small Family 
Price Range: £11,950 to £19,900
Fun to drive, refined 2.2 diesel, low emissions, good interior.
Some concerns over ride quality, poor steering feel, lack of space in rear.
The Mazda 3 leaps from offbeat alternative to near class best. Deserves serious consideration.
The old 3 missed out on being awarded the coveted full five stars for crash safety in the Euro NCAP testing - not a mistake engineers are prepared to make again.
All models gain six airbags and life-saving ESP, but the real improvements lie in the firm's greater use of high tensile steel and extensive reinforcing of areas that in the old model were seen as weaknesses.
Mazda has also included big-car technology using optional adaptive headlights that bend and see further into a corner, but also blind spot indicators that employ rear facing cameras to detect vehicles hovering out of eyesight on the motorway.
Latest Readers' Drives About the Mazda Mazda3
wrote on 16 12 2006