Yeah, designed a nice exterior and then ruined it with a stick-on tablet on top of the dash.
Wow.. the sedan looks exactly like what I might expect a compact Volvo or Maserati would.. and the hatchback has its own unique thing going on. This is a definite winner for Mazda!
Vince - Couldn't agree more. Mazda is once again leading the industry in design and value. How come their vehicles don't sell in large numbers? What do you think is the problem?
For the first time in generations the sedan looks better. There are more pictures of the hatch out there and boy is that c pillar huge and ugly, better have standard blind spot detection.
What is it about auto writers and Mazda? The new 3 couldn’t be duller yet the accolades will be pouring in. I had a Mazda 6 wagon as a rental in Italy a while ago and while the roads couldn’t have been better, the car couldn’t have been more boring to drive. And this was supposed to be a holy grail machine per every publication. Likewise, I test drive a 2018 6 recently and found it to be a big yawn. Even the vaunted Miata is really no great shakes to drive despite all the hullabaloo. Mazda is the Emperor’s New Car.
Well, it's all subjective, of course. I find the hatch grotesque with that ridiculously huge C-pillar. I'd consider the sedan, but both versions look like their sides are bashed in.
So this is it? The new 3 sedan is the better looking of the two, but while clean and attractive it’s hardly ground-breaking. The proportionally-challenged hatchback, on the other hand, is odd-looking. Perhaps even ugly. The sedan should have been a hatchback, and a 2-door version would have been offered in place of the ungainly hatchback. The interior is nice, except for the multi-layered dash top with a tablet awkwardly shoved in a hole look. Hopefully the SkyActiv technology makes up for what the 3 lacks in style.
The sedan is attractive! The hatchback is ungainly!
I read that Mazda used a torsion beam rear suspension on this new Mazda3 instead of the multi link independent rear suspension that was utilized on previous generations. This switch seems like a definite step backwards!
Sleek, elegant, and understated. Classy. Something you don't see every day now.
The loss of the independent rear suspension is not small. A critical mistake.
The exterior design of the new gen sedan is a definite improvement over the current version. The current gen sedan always looked like Mazda simply morphed the hatchback into a three box configuration and the result was a bit awkward. The new gen version looks like it was designed from the start to be a proper three box design and the resulting vehicle looks much more appropriately proportioned because of it. I also like the fact that the side window shape from the first two generations of the Mazda3 sedan seems to have resurfaced on the new gen version in an updated form. It gives the new gen sedan a sense of continuity with its past in addition to giving it its own unique and appropriate appearance from the hatchback.
The exterior design of the hatchback is a hot mess. It appears to be very awkward and somewhat shapeless. The exterior of the current gen does an excellent job of balancing a curvaceous overall shape with some hard lines to provide an attractively proportioned shape. The new gen version loses this essential balance and looks like Mazda simply left the current gen hatchback in the sun too long until it morphed into a melted blob. While Mazda did a great job of translating a concept car into production form (although I never really thought that the Kai Concept was attractive), the resulting new gen car just doesn’t possess the awesome appeal of the current gen version.
The interior design is totally stunning. Mazda has really elevated its game on interior design.
One last note: It is hard to believe that a brand that aspires to be more premium and upmarket would install an archaic and unsophisticated rear suspension on its latest creation. I’m not sure how much this will impact Mazda’s image with the general public, but it will appear as though Mazda has cheapened the vehicle to enthusiasts or anyone who does extensive research on their vehicle purchases. We’ll see how this change affects this vehicle’s image, reviews, and sales performance. Much attention will be directed at this change if the new gen car’s handling becomes far less dynamic and engaging due to this change.