>> BMW has it's M cars, Mercedes has AMG, Mazda has Mazda Speed. All right, it's kind of a stretch but, let's check out the '07 Mazda Speed 3.
^M00:00:09
[ music ]
^M00:00:14
Now our Mazda 3 is missing the real big option which would be the navigation system, which on these cars has kind of a cool flip up design here at the top of the stack. We don't have that to show you, but we've seen it in previous Mazda's. It's not a bad unit, but it's not top of the class. But it's pretty well priced. More on that later. Here's the audio system of course. The entertainment rig here as you see is very stylized. Whenever I see that I go okay, you better like it because that's gonna be tough to replace without a full custom job by a 12 volt shop. This doesn't match any kind of single dim, double dim, anything. There are probably some after market adapter plates, but you know, how pretty is it gonna look to stick a single dim right there? And what happens to all these buttons up here like clock and info, which are not part of the audio upgrade you might do. So learn to love this system. Fortunately, that's fairly easy to do. It's a Bose branded system, a surround sound effect is built in, also audio pilot noise canceling technology, 6 disk in dash changer but regrettably does not play MP3 disks. Just standard, store bought, factory red book audio cd's. Sirius Satellite Radio is optional, our car does have it so the sat button here is activated. Funny effect here when you go back and forth on the volume, you get this little illumination effect. Doesn't really do anything, but it keeps you amused as you adjust the knob back and forth. There's an auxiliary input jack that lives down here in the console, as is very common. You've got a couple of 12 volt outlets around the vehicle, so power's not hard to come by. No Blue Tooth available on this car. You've gotta roll your own. No iPod adapter, just this more generic auxiliary input. This is not a car that makes a super strong tech statement. Because it's technology is primarily under the hood. So as you can tell, this car, well it has a tech audience look and feel to it, it's not terribly laden with actual technology. Standard or optional. But it does have a strong tech statement in the power train. You can tell that by the evidence of this gear box here, the standard and only transmission, a very nice 6 speed manual and that connects to a very sporty motor. Now Mazda speeds are obviously all about speed and this motor's pretty good at doing that. 2.3 liter in line 4, dual overhead cam, 16 valves, blah, blah, blah. Where it gets interesting is the fact that it's a turbo and also has direct spark injection as they call it. Inner cooled turbo, that's what I'm sitting on right here as you can see, pretty good size inner cooler as well. Not a real hood scope, though it does look like it vents out through the hood. The power numbers are good, 260ish horsepower, 280 foot pounds as I recall, but power goes out through 2 wheels only. It's front wheel drive. There's no all wheel drive option, but there is a limited slip differential, limited slip trans axle specifically, keeping the power from getting out of hand. Also doing that is ABS an electronic brake force distribution and a couple of layers of traction control that are tuned toward performance and not just safety. The Mazda Speed 3 starts off at almost exactly 24 grand, navigation would cost you 1750 extra. Anytime navigation's under 2 grand I consider it a pretty good deal and our Sirius Satellite Radio option was another 430.
^M00:03:20
[ music ]
