Sunday, February 22, 2009

2010 Mazda3: I'm Cryin'...


Well, that is too bad. I had seen some pictures of the 2010 Mazda3 5 door, and was not too worried. But more and better pictures have shown up on the Mazda site, and it is a bit worrisome. Is there any way to only buy the back 2/3 of the car? That part is working, but not much of the front is working at all.



First there is the big smiley faced grill, which is really mostly the bumper in disguise. Disgusting. Then there are the side grills, fashioned to look like air intakes for the brakes or some such thing. Well, they look fake. Sorry.

Not only are there some ridges that run up the hood just inboard of the headlights, but there are big shoulder ridges around the wheels. Seems they borrowed those from the new beetle. One or the other of these ridges might have worked, but to try to get both in there makes a mountain out what was a pretty nice mole hill. 

Moving further back, things settle down, but there is that ridge that starts on the driver door, down low, and ends in a kick-up. It kinda mimics the smiley-grill, but brings to mind the Toyota Matrix. Not in a good way either. This car should never remind you of a Toyota Matrix.

Oh well. There are enough of the original model of the Mazda3 out there so that one should be able to find a clean low mile example for some time to come. Until they fix this one, that is what I will plan on doing when the Volvo finally bites the dust.

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