CIRCULATING IN WANGARATTA, BENALLA, MYRTLEFORD, BRIGHT, MT BEAUTY, BEECHWORTH, YACKANDANDAH, RUTHERGLEN, CHILTERN AND DISTRICTS
NORTH EAST
January 9, 2015
available online - wangarattachronicle.com.au
PRINTED FORTNIGHTLY — VOLUME 464
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MAZDA CX-3: Set to be launched in Australia this year.
Mazda CX-3: an exciting SUV crossover I
f you haven’t heard of the new Mazda CX-3, you soon will. This SUV crossover is set to become the next big thing on the Australian motoring landscape by shaking up the booming small SUV segment. How big could it become? Right now we would predict segment leadership and probably Mazda’s third highest volume vehicle behind icons Mazda3 and CX-3’s big brother, CX-5. Not since Range Rover Evoque has a vehicle yet to hit showroom floors caused such a stir. It wowed the international media at the 2014 LA Motor Show. With Australia set to be the second country to take the CX-3 – Japan is the first – Australian motoring writers were the first in the world to get a taste of the CX-3 in a closed track session at the Anglesea Australian Automotive
By MURRAY HUBBARD Research Centre, just outside Geelong in Victoria. CX-3 has an exquisite body style that will lure and then seduce buyers in Mazda showrooms. The style alone will generate sales but as we found out at Anglesea, there is a lot more to this small crossover than a provocative body style. It’s a seriously good thing to drive and will have massive appeal to young couples and those with small families. We have no doubt CX-3, to be launched in Australia in the second quarter of 2015, will win major design awards. We drove two pre-production cars at Anglesea – a high spec 1.5-litre turbodiesel, six-speed auto with AWD and a mid-spec 2.0-litre petrol, also with six-
speed auto, but this time with 2WD. Mazda is yet to announce pricing or what the model range here will look like, other than to say there will be combinations of 4WD/2WD, manual and auto transmissions, and petrol and diesel engines. There are likely to be two or three specification levels. Pricing is likely to fall between the upper level of Mazda2 – the same platform on which the CX-3 is based – and the Mazda3. This could mean from around $23,000 to $37,000 depending on specifications. Mazda is rolling out new cars that feature the company’s current “Kodo – Soul of Motion” design philosophy and the CX-3 is the latest to get the treatment. To our eye there are three major features to this car: the long bonnet of a sports car, the small
cabin of a coupe and the rear end of an SUV, along with some clever, yet subtle, lines that add sculpture to the end product. Mazda had the chief designer for the CX-3, Youichi Matsuda, on hand at Anglesea. He told us that the designers penned a car they would like to design for themselves, but within Kodo framework. In particular the long bonnet line, which extends to the rear door, gives an impression that this vehicle is a lot longer than it really is at 4275 mm. This is also enhanced by the black D-pillars. That also results in the car having proportions that are as near perfect as we have seen in recent years, down to the 18-inch wheels that fill the arches ideally and set the car off for its road presence.
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