I HAVE PUT A DEPOSIT DOWN ON 1!!! $42,695 driveaway with paint protect, tints, mats and 6 year 200,000km warranty. Its going to be RED, wanted Silver but the MPS3 doesn't come in that colour. will lets u all know what the car felt like to me in my test drive, but this thing goes!!! i am obviously very happy! :D
save up for coilovers, strut bar, BOV and 19's then man hahahahahaha
nah man this is going to be a daily driver no need for coilies.. it comes with a strut tower member brace already.. and with BOV i did think of that, wanted a Blitz dual stage one but they might void my warranty for this!! wheels i think 18s are too big already, tyres will probably cost me a fortune to replace.
But here is the rundown on the car, it has plenty of torque from 2000rpm where the turbo is already spooling hard, it pulls really hard even in 4th at 40km/h. You won't ever need to go past 1/4 throttle opening to get this thing to overtake in the city, i was actually taken aback when i first jumped in and gassed it in 2nd! it was lunging forward at an unbelievable pace riht from the word go and i was in a 60zone. The front wheels did lose traction in 1st gear once but it was only momentarily with some torque steer, nothing tyre smoking, and in 2nd gear i could still feel the torque steer and all the elelctronics trying to tame the front wheels. It actually felt very wierd as the Stivo never had this, if the front wheels spun in LIFT, it spun! It was more of controlling the throttle but in the Mazda3 MPS its very different. I have to admit it will take some getting used to.
The brakes are super responsive though, lunged forward hard a few times when i attempted to heel-toe :P the clutch was grabbing very high up in the clutch travel which i didn't like, and the pedal felt softer than my Stivo's which is a concern considering it has so much power and torque to handle. The steering is heavier which i really like, no chance to test out the handling capabilities which was a bit of a shame. The interior quality and design was fantastic, i absolutely loved te beautiful seats like rollamods mentioned, and it oozes more quality than a WRX. The zero-counter pointers for the tacho and speedo were great and speedo does read 280km/h (claimed top speed of 250km/h)! Gearshift was a little less notchy than the Stivo's and lighter to shift but felt that it wasn't as accurate into the gates as compared to the Stivo's. Only gripe is there is less room compared to the rolla althought its a 5 door hatch but it has so many things that the Stivo hasn't got like a middle armrest for the rear seat, more cup holders, telescopic tilt and reach steering column, cruise/audio controls on the steering wheel, 6 airbags standard, Traction control and DSC (dynamic stability control), LSD, and of course the engine is so tractable and easy to drive.
I really think Mazda has done a great job with this MPS version of Mazda 3, its like the formula Toyota used to create the Sportivo version of our Corollas :)
Well done man ;)