Drive
It’s unlikely Mazda chose this proximity to the San Andreas Fault as the launch for its next-generation Mazda3 to test a theory that its small car is unshakeable as the best car to drive in its ultra-competitive segment.
Mazda clearly believes its advantage in ride and handling is significant enough over rivals such as the Toyota Corolla and Honda Civic that the car maker decided it could carry over the car’s suspension with just a few modifications.
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Although the new Mazda3 is distinguished easily inside and out with a completely revamped cabin and all-new sheetmetal, the strut-front and multilink rear suspension underneath is all-familiar.
The new Mazda3’s program manager, Yoshiyuki Maeda, says the original car’s underpinnings were so good that it meant engineers could focus on optimising its effectiveness – as well as addressing the current 3’s Achilles heel: noise refinement.
“The current Mazda3 is more than four years old but its dynamic performance is still really high for the driver,” says Maeda.
“When I became program manager for the Mazda3, the reputation from Australia was that road noise was not good enough,” he says.
“In order to improve the steering and road noise we needed to improve the body structure and suspension – especially the mounting points of the suspension. We tightened everything to improve the ride, steering and NVH.”
Those improvements include doubling the usage of high-tensile steel in the new 3 (from 18 to 35 per cent), which also lowers the car’s body-in-white by 11kg compared with the outgoing model’s basic shell.
The foreign, Californian roads used for the new Mazda3 sedan’s international launch are not conducive to forming an accurate assessment of the 3’s claimed improvements in noise refinement.
