By John Simister
Specifications
Model:
Mazda2 1.5-litre.
Price:
About £12 000 (R170 000). Range will start around £8 500 (R120 000). On sale in UK in September.
Engine:
1498cc, four cylinders, 16 valves, 75kW at 6000rpm, 137Nm at 4000rpm.
Transmission:
Five-speed gearbox, front-wheel drive.
Performance:
Top speed 180km/h, 0-100km 10.4sec, 5.9 litres/100km.
Cars, we analysts of the motor industry wail, are getting bigger and heavier and it's a tragedy. After all, what's the point of a supermini if it isn't mini any more? So here's the new Mazda2 going into temporal reverse by weighing a hefty 100kg less than the car it replaces and becoming a bit shorter and significantly lower in the process.
It was launched at the 2007 Geneva auto show and is expected to reach South Africa before the end of 2007.
Yet its image is definitely forward-looking: this is a crisp, ultra-modern car designed (says Mazda) for joy and love of ownership.
Maybe we Brits wouldn't show our feelings quite so openly towards our cars - we have to make sure they know who's boss - but the other future-pointing Mazda2 feature is its parsimony when it comes to buying the fuels that power it. Light weight means lower fuel consumption and if a new small car can achieve this while having all the things customers and legislators are now convinced we need we should all applaud.
The Mazda does exactly that. While weighing less than a ton, as all small cars used to do, it still has the required safety kit and impact friendliness towards pedestrian. So where has all that auto-fat gone? Normal steels have been replaced by various grades of extra-strength steels, of which you need less, according to Mazda. All sorts of components have been redesigned with an eye to shaving excess weight, from suspension down to speakers.
In design and feel, this is a small car happy not to try to ape a larger one. The previous Mazda2 was a tall, boxy, semi-estate car of a configuration popular in Japan but this one is for European buyers - and the growing number of young, female Japanese buyers unkeen on the angular cars favoured by their male peers.
We had a preview of the Mazda2's look with the Sassou concept car designed in Mazda's Frankfurt studio. By then, though, the Mazda2's design was already set, one of two Hiroshima studio proposals chosen from several from both Hiroshima (Mazda's home city) and Frankfurt. The chief designer settled on the final car while in Milan, centre of European style. He tried to visualise the two finalists on Milanese streets.
It's a refreshing style. The Mazda has most of the design tricks typical of today's superminis: chamfered front corners and eye-shaped headlights stretching along the front wings, a stubby bonnet and a rising waistline. Yet it comes across as simple, pure, uncluttered and really rather distinctive compared with the fussy detailing of some rivals.
For example, the front wings sit low and roundedly wheel-hugging below the high bonnet and out of each grows a rising ridge that flips towards the horizontal by the time it reaches the tail lights. Two bumps at the back of the roof hide the tailgate hinges, the whole lot giving an aura, says Mazda in its engagingly Japlish turn of phrase, of "exquisite dynamism".
The top model, called Sport, has spoilers, bigger wheels, a bar across its grille and a menacing lower air-intake. It spoils the design's purity but chief designer Ikuo Maeda says he prefers it because it looks more male. Remember that if you're prone to naming your cars.
The simple theme continues in the cabin in variations of black and silver. The deep front-door windows give an airy ambience and the facia doesn't try to dominate. Circles are its theme, be they the four vents, the central information display (it bids you "hello" as you unlock the door) or the big speedometer and smaller rev-counter.
Then there's the clever, original stuff. The handbrake is offset towards the driving seat, so there can be a handbag-sized shelf next to it. An MP3 jack socket sits nearby and the glove box's lid is a magazine rack. It's a roomy little car, too, especially in the back, and the boot puts a Mini's to shame. Folding the rear backrests creates a big step in the resultant load platform, though, and it's a pity there are no soft-touch finishes to relieve the cabin's hard plastics.
The Mazda2 looks as if it might be fun to drive and all that "zoom-zoom" sloganeering from the company adds to the expectation. As with the previous Mazda2, the platform is shared by Ford's Fiesta, but this time Mazda took the engineering lead and the car is built not in Valencia but in Hiroshima. So it has Mazda petrol engines instead of Ford but the 1.4-litre diesel is the near-ubiquitous Peugeot unit.
The diesel, which promises to make the diesel Mazda2 one of the most economical cars on sale, won't be available straight away. It will arrive early in 2008, along with a three-door body.
There are two 1.3-litre engines of 60 or 66kW but with practically identical torque and economy data so price and insurance group would be the only reason to favour the lower-powered one. And there's the 1.5, which has 77kW and (for the UK) comes with the male-pleasing Sport pack. This is the engine I drove on this early preview and it can be matched to the non-Sport look in other market. So, does it zoom?
It does up to a point. Mazda engineers talk much of their efforts to make their new car's structure rigid and resonance-free and the engine does spin smoothly without bombarding you with booms. The high-mounted gear shifter does its job neatly and the whole car feels handy and light on its feet, if not quite as lively as you might expect.
Mazda likes its cars to tighten their line if you decelerate in a curve because the engineers rightly think it helps you get round a bend you may have entered too fast. The Mazda2 is true to type, to an extent surprising at first, but it never feels unstable.
There's a rubberiness to its responses which I'd rather wasn't there because it makes the otherwise quick-acting steering a bit mushy. That slack feels as if it's in the rear suspension's rubber mountings and it makes that tightening cornering-line business a touch too springy.
The trade-off is a quite soft and supple ride because that rubber helps to absorb sharp edges. So don't expect the precision you'd find in, say, a Toyota Yaris. It's a good little car, though, friendly and frugal.
Would you feel joy and love if you owned one? If so, remember it comes with a choice of genders. - The Independent, London
The rivals
Peugeot 207 1.6 Vti Sport
Popular supermini now gains a 90kW, direct-injection engine developed with BMW. Lively, economical, well equipped, sporty aura.
Toyota Yaris 1.3 VVT-i
The engine is small but the car, like the Mazda, is light and handy to drive. Luminescent central speedometer is fun; roomy cabin is let down by hard plastics.
Opel Corsa 1.4
Corsa grows up with bold styling and a spacious interior but the 1.4 engine's energy is blunted by the weight. Good value and a dependable choice.