Mazda is not a brand generally associated with fire-breathing performance cars (the RX8 being an exception) so South Africa's hot hatch brigade was stunned when it launched the Mazda 3 MPS a couple of months ago.
Its turbocharged, intercooled 2.3-litre engine wields the most powerful outputs in this league - all of 190kW and 380Nm - and so the natural assumption, based on these class-leading figures, was that we had the new king of the hot hatches.
Forget GTi, OPC, ST... they all became cannon fodder for the mom's taxi that suddenly learned how to be mean.
Well, that was the assumption.
The Mazda 3 MPS (it stands for Mazda Performance Series) is indeed a very powerful and sweet-handling car and an image builder for this once very staid and vanilla-flavoured brand, along with the Mazda 6 MPS with which it shares its engine.
Boy racers who previously never considered a Mazda are now seeing it zoom-zooming (to steal Mazda's catchphrase) across their radar screens.
So why my hesitation in crowning it the hot hatch king, wrapping up this road test, and nipping off to have a beer?
Well, on paper the Mazda should out-sprint its rivals but when we put it against the stopwatch at Gauteng altitude it returned slower-than-expected figures.
It took 7.8sec to reach 100km/h, which is not hanging about but far behind Mazda's supercar-like 6.1sec claim. More importantly, it's slightly slower than the 7.7sec achieved by the far less powerful Golf GTi, as well as several other less powerful rivals.
So what's going on? Has Mazda lied about its output figures? Do we need to start putting cars on dynos to test manufacturer claims?
Or did we test a "Monday" car, seeing one of the motoring monthlies managed 7.2sec in another Mazda 3 MPS (which is still quite a way off the claimed figure).
Whatever the reason, those are the numbers for the drivers who live and die by 0-100km/h times.
The good news is that the mightiest Mazda 3 has a lot to offer if you're not interested in beating every GTi or OPC at the traffic lights. There's more than enough power and handling here to thrill an enthusiast driver and get the adrenalin flowing.
There's a satisfying shove when you boot the throttle, as you get pressed back into those bucket seats, which are one of my favourite features of the car for their excellent side support and groovy styling (if groovy is still a word).
Turning a garden-variety Mazda 3 into an MPS involved beefed-up suspension and a stiffer body in addition to the fire in its belly.
The "mine's-faster-than-yours" styling involves muscular wheel arches, 18" footwear, a bonnet bulge to house the turbo intercooler and a gutterspout-size exhaust - all very sporty and athletic but still relatively restrained, without going the gold-chained, hairy-chested Impreza STi route.
Sporty but classy environment
The bling in the cabin treads a similar path with subtle MPS badging, aluminium pedals and those terrific leather/cloth seats creating a sporty but classy environment.
All that power is fed through the front wheels so the MPS is equipped with a torque control system to reduce torque steer. It senses lateral movement in the front wheels and works like a traction control system to prevent them from yanking the steering to and fro when you're accelerating like Kimi Raikkonen at the start of a GP.
It works fine in normal to semi-swift driving but when you really give it stick the steering does jerk around in your hands, although not as badly as you'd expect from the (claimed) power output.
What I found more annoying than the torque steer was the notchy gearshift, which wasn't happy being hurried through its six-speed gate and possibly contributed to the half-hearted sprints.
But all is forgiven when you're on the move and you give the throttle a firm thrust. The Mazda has lively roll-on acceleration from fairly low revs and pulls heartily even in the higher gears.
All this distance-eating pace happens in a fairly hushed manner; the MPS cruises along quite serenely and is generally very refined, apart from a turbo whoosh when you're giving it a proper whipping.
Enjoying the corners
Mazda's mover and shaker enjoys the corners, too. A few laps around WesBank Raceway revealed the car clung to the road with little body roll and a generally clean and composed nature.
You can't just boot the throttle through tight twisties with wild abandon, however, as it just pushes the nose wide; it takes a more subtle, feed-the-fuel approach to get the MPS neatly through the turns.
The Mazda's dynamic stability control is one of the better traction systems I've encountered, preventing silly driver mistakes from ending in metal-crunching moments without being frustratingly intrusive and chiming in smoothly without rude power interruptions.
The brakes are good, and once or twice when I slammed them too hard it invoked the BAS emergency system which maintained maximum braking even when I reduced pressure on the pedal.
VERDICT
There was a time when a Mazda could bore you to sleep at 100 paces but the Japanese brand's turnaround has been as refreshing as an icy vodka with a shot of lemon.
It has little sporting heritage to draw from so it might be some time before an MPS badge engenders the same respect as a GTi's but this makes a good start.