Mazda3 Sedan debuts at the LA Auto Show

The Mazda3, the Japanese carmaker’s most successful vehicle, received a new sedan version, which made its debut at the LA Auto Show. The new Mazda3 Sedan has a more dynamic exterior design, improved performance, more environmental and safety features and new standard and optional equipment. The first impression is that the car looks really good, following Mazda’s Zoom Zoom trend and borrowing a lot of styling elements from the gorgeous Mazda6.

Under the hood, the Mazda3 will be available with a MZR 2.0 liter (148 hp at 6500 rpm and 135 lb-ft of torque at 4500 rpm) and a new MZR 2.5 liter four-cylinder, borrowed from its big sister, the Mazda6, which delivers 167 hp at 6000 rpm and 168 lb-ft of torque at 4000 rpm. Both engines benefit from Mazda’s advanced electronic throttle actuation and exclusive torque base control technology.

Regarding the transmission, the Mazda3 will be offered with a five-speed manual transmission, a six-speed stick-shift transmission or a five-speed electronically controlled Sport-AT automatic transmission. Unfortunately, the fuel economy figures are not that impressive, the 2.0 liter Mazda3 getting 25 mpg (with manual, and 24 mpg with the automatic) in the city and 33 mpg on the highway, while the 2.5 liter version gets 21 mpg (city) and 29 mpg (highway). I don’t know about you, but for the car’s size and for the current times, this sounds a little too much.

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Mazda3 sedan at the Sydney Motor Show - video

At the Sydney Motor Show currently underway, Mazda has presented a preview of the Mazda3 sedan, with the video above. The car will be officially presented at Los Angeles, but given its success on the Australian market, the preview happened at the Sydney show. The preview was presented by Philip Spender, Mazda Executive Vice President, saying that the five-door version will debut on the European market sometime after November this year.



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2010 Mazda3 sedan spied

The new Mazda3 will showcase the new styling direction that will eventually spread to the entire Mazda lineup, Laurens van den Acker, Mazda’s design chief, said recently.

Although still covered in a bit of camo, we can see an impressive pair of projector headlamps up front and angled tail lights in back. Overall, once the camouflage comes off, we expect a much more sporty design to be revealed.

From the interior photos, we can see this 3 sedan is packing a 6 speed transmission. That’s one more gear than the current model. We can also see buttons for heated seats, satellite radio and an MP3 hard drive. That probably tells us we’re looking at a Grand Touring sedan prototype.

The new Mazda3 will ride on the next-generation global Ford Focus C1 platform and is expected to be longer and wider than the current model.

Under the hood, Mazda’s MZR line of motors will get a bump in power and further tweaking for fuel savings. Expect the current 2.3L motor to be bored out to around 2.5L. That should give it a 20-30hp bump from the current 156hp rating. The 2.0L base motor probably won’t see an increase in displacement, but a 10 to 15 horsepower increase is likely.

This all new sport compact was originally due to go on sale sometime in the last half of 2009, but will now hit showrooms in the summer of 2009 as a 2010 model year car.

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