 I've had two Mazda 3 GTs. Both hatchbacks, both identical except the transmission. The 2015 was an automatic and the 2017 is a manual. Mazda has addressed my single complaint that made the 2015 virtually undriveable on the highway. Noise. The 2017 while still kind of loud, it is at least liveable and after 11,500 miles is turning out to be a really good choice. The car is quick, beautiful, comfortable and efficient and, while I don't care at all about fuel economy my average in city/highway driving is 31.2 mpg. But it's the handling and the interior design and execution that really blows my mind. Build quality is excellent too. I passed up a BMW 135 and the GTi specifically because of the interior in this car. My trip to and from Crested Butte consisted of several 2 hour long  85-90 mph stretches on US24 and  I-70, (thanks to a BEL radar detector) and, over Monarch Pass the car was a paragon of stability and steering excellence. Look, before you default to the hideous looking Civic please just take a Sunday and drive to a Mazda store and look inside a Mazda 3 GT.   See if you find ANY other car for less than $40,000 that looks this nice. Then rent a Mazda 3, any Mazda 3,  and drive it for a few hours. Drive to Costco and lay the seats flat, then load the car full of stuff and see how fast you can drive home.  You'll find out how comfortable and efficent these cars are.One other thing to point out is how easy it is to parallel park this car. I love that!  And if you can find a GT hatch with a manual transmission like mine you should buy it. (The automatic is faster and drives almost as well)