News & Reviews- Make: Mazda

Launched for the 2014 model year, the third-generation Mazda6 appears to have it all: style, performance, comfort, crisp handling, excellent fuel economy, value … even critical approval (it won the Automobile Journalists Association of Canada's Car of the Year Award in 2014).

It's a surprise then to find that Mazda's athletic mid-size sedan lags in the race out the showroom doors, with Canadian sales numbers finishing up just ahead of the niche Subaru Legacy during 2014, but well behind the big players like the Ford Fusion it shares underpinnings with, or the Honda Accord, Toyota Camry, Hyundai Sonata, Chrysler 200, Nissan Altima, and the list goes on. The story was pretty much the same in the US, although there even the Legacy nipped the Mazda6 at the line.

Rising to the challenge, Mazda was preparing to release a mildly refreshed 2016 Mazda6 even as 2015 got underway, but in the meantime I was able to drive the current model and found it thoroughly engaging Read Full Story

It's one thing to come up with a good looking well designed car or SUV, and quite another to craft a unique yet attractive design language for an entire brand that transfers just as nicely from the long flowing lines of a sports car or midsize sedan to a compact hatchback or crossover utility. This is what Mazda has done with its new "KODO – Soul of Motion" design direction, first shown in the 2010 Shinari concept, after which the production results have been very intriguing.

Oddly, Mazda's oldest chassis design, and the only one to still roll on a Ford undercarriage and use blue-oval mechanicals, was the first of its models to get the new Kodo design language, debuting on the 2013 CX-9. Next was the CX-5 that I'm reviewing here, which also arrived in 2012 as a 2013 model, followed up by the 2014 Mazda6 and same model year of Mazda3. The stragglers still to be updated include the subcompact Mazda2 hatchback, Mazda5 mini minivan, and the MX-5 roadster that's so good looking Read Full Story

Mazda answered many a pundit's pointed question as well as myriad performance enthusiasts' prayers by adding a manual transmission to its revered 3 GT this year.

Yes, strange that a manual gearbox wasn't part of the 2014 Mazda3 GT's standard package in the first place, this being the sportiest trim level currently available for one of the zoomiest cars it produces. The powers that be at Zoom-Zoom nation were evidently not congruent with their performance-oriented brand principles when they made this decision, but now they've righted this wrong and all is forgiven. And please don't misunderstand my point: They did include standard paddle-shifters with their impressive Skyactiv-Drive six-speed automatic last year and still do, showing that the brand's performance principles were at least being adhered to in some respects, but Mazda's superb short-throw Skyactiv-MT six-speed manual transmission deserved to be next to GT driver's seat too.

As you can imagine, Mazda wanted Read Full Story

I'm not sure which Mazda3 I like better. The five-door Sport with its rakish profile and handy hatchback design or the sleek, contemporary four-door sedan with its more traditional stance and secure trunk, they're both so good looking.

Of course, that's just my opinion, and to be completely honest there are a number of very stylish compacts currently on the market. It's always a personal taste issue, but there are a few undeniable design traits that are more appealing to the majority of new car buyers than others. While certainly trendy, today's car buyers seem to like big, gaping grilles, and the new 3 delivers with the largest maw in the model's history. It just so happens the 3's grille manages to satisfy the crowd's appetites in a particularly elegant way. A discrete chromed collar wraps its lower extremities before melding seamlessly into the car's elegantly jeweled headlamps, these just above a sporty cluster of available driving lights and fogs at each corner. The hood Read Full Story

Yesterday, a full 25 years since the first generation model was introduced, Mazda unveiled the latest fourth-generation of its iconic MX-5 (Miata) roadster. By looks alone it appears to be worthy of the revered MX-5 nameplate, not to mention torchbearer status for the Japanese brand's performance image throughout the latter half of this decade.

The new 2016 model year design represents a bold departure from any previous MX-5, its cute and friendly persona replaced by a downright serious, purposeful and even slightly menacing look. The hood is long and low, not unlike the old Honda S2000's, ending with a deep and wide version of the brand's new trapezoidal grille design. Likewise the new headlight clusters are narrow as if the car is determinedly squinting, capping off a set of sculpted front fenders which follow a beltline that tapers inward as it passes by the doors and then bulges outward as it rounds over the rear wheels, forming a strong, planted appearance that will no doubt Read Full Story