My second revelation is that everybody who works for Mazda drives really, really fast. Kaneko is a former super karting champion, Koby Jr. is a JDM gymkhana master, Butts is a former rally and ice racer, and Coleman, is well, Coleman. Even PR guy Barnes is a former Southern California regional autocross champion. And then there is Katakura-san. He's been with the company for 47 years - the first 10 of which he spent as their factory race car driver. He claims to have driven every Mazda vehicle since 1959 and, even at 65, he is beyond fast. I have a feeling I'm the slowest guy here, but since they're not recording my lap times, that remains the only question that isn't answered by the end of the day.
The question of which brake set-up to use for the press launch is eventually resolved. The stock set-up was trouble-free throughout most of the day. In fact, the aftermarket Endless race pads performed worse, with a grabby initial engagement deemed unacceptable. The only issue appeared late in the day after a particularly brutal lapping session. At rest, the hot brakes would make a blood-curdling mechanical shriek when the pedal was depressed. The exact cause was hard to determine, but as they cooled, the noise went away. Confident that even the journalists wouldn't be able to inflict that kind of abuse, the Mazdaspeed guys decide to stick with the stock set-up.
Conclusion
After two years of planning, thousands of miles of global travel and millions of dollars in research and development, it has all come down to this. The Mazdaspeed crew has collected numbers, data and feedback and I have my, well, estimates. In deference to all the other magazines that didn't get early access, we weren't allowed to run numbers on the Mazdaspeed3. Mazda claims it will do well under six seconds to 60mph and, based solely on my butt-dyno, I'm inclined to agree - although even with the fancy torque-limiting system, it's going to need some rough tarmac and fancy launches to avoid massive wheelspin. Mazda also claims the top speed is electronically limited to 155mph, which sounds about right; I probed the far right sweep of the speedometer, lifting at around 130mph when I ran out of road. Other than the increased wind noise, the car felt extremely stable and showed no signs of slowing.
By now it should be apparent that we highly approve of the Mazdaspeed3. Of course, it's no secret that we like cars with gobs of turbocharged power - but there is more to this story. There is a deep sense of passion surrounding the Mazdaspeed3 that is absent in almost every modern car, factory tuned or otherwise. Tod put it best when he described the working relationship of Mazda R&D and the race teams they support: "We use a lot of 'transfer of technology' from our Mazdaspeed Motorsports Development programs and input this knowledge directly into our production vehicle programs. For example, we are assisting various teams such as Ed Bergenholtz and his turbo Pro-FWD drag car and Eric Burmeister's Mazda3 turbo rally car. Not only does this help improve motorsports competitiveness, it also provides a great training ground for additional development of young Mazda engineers."
"We don't have a lot of resources like other OEMs," Kaneko continues. "As a result, we need to utilize everyone's specific areas of knowledge and expertise to assist our motorsports and production vehicle development efforts. It's really an example of personal passion since this activity is primarily conducted after hours among the close-knit group of Mazdaspeed teams and engineers."
We're lobbying hard to get a Mazdaspeed3 for our project car garage and if you want one as well, you'd better start making plans. Only 5,000 will be available to North America per year and though the exact price is another pearl reserved for the official press launch, Mazda officials tell us it will be under $25k. We heard rumors that it should be significantly less than that; somewhere just north of the GTI and Civic Si prices. Right out of the box, you simply can't compare those to the Mazdaspeed3, it really is that good. The only real contender should be Dodge's 300bhp Caliber SRT-4 and we're already licking our chops for that cage match. Only after those two do battle will we know for sure which sport compact truly is at the top of the food chain. But until we drive one, our money is on this apex predator.
By Edward Loh
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