Mazda2 2007 Review

Two Sexy

For years the elegant stainless-steel paper knife sat prominently on my desk in Italy. Daily, I used Enzo Mari's Ameland knife for opening envelopes, delighted that so stylish an object could be employed for such a menial chore. The gift was also clearly a piece of artwork, to be admired for the simple twists of its shape.

The knife and its name had receded into history until Ikuo Maeda, chief designer for the new Mazda 2, claimed: "I wanted the design [of the 2] to express the exquisite simplicity of the Ameland knife with its twists and sculpted contours."

Japanese car designers love drawing comparisons between their latest model and nature or design icons. To Western eyes the claims are often exaggerated or obscure. Not on the 2. A sharply rising character line divides light falling on the body flanks into two distinct visual twists; squint and the prominent, RX-8ish rounded contours of the front wheelarch also draw similarities with the famous Danese-produced knife. (See it at www.danesemilano.com.)

Mazda (accurately) uses words like cheeky, dynamic, sporty and young to describe the new 2. No surprise, then, that the little hatchback represents a major shift in philosophy from the old 2's station wagon-like packaging that meant it was primarily intended for the Japanese market. This is also the first model to diverge from Mazda's first-generation 'Zoom-Zoom' styling, begun with the 2002 Mazda 6, and clearly aimed at a global audience.

To reverse a 15-year trend towards bigger and heavier superminis, the 2 is built over an all-new platform to be shared with next year's new Ford Fiesta. It employs light weight, high-strength steels and smaller dimensions - it's 40mm shorter and 55mm lower (if 15mm wider) than the existing model, yet has the same 2490mm wheelbase - to reduce the base car's weight by 100kg to 955kg.

As models destined for Oz are better equipped (electric windows, ABS), the mass difference is reduced to 65kg for a still class-leading kerb weight of 995kg. Sixty percent of the saving comes from engineering advances, with half of that in the body structure.

Mazda's 'gram strategy', first employed on the MX-5, has also been applied to every aspect and detail of the 2. A switch from ferrite to neodymium magnets, and use of a one-piece plastic moulding, saved 0.98kg in the door speakers, for example.

This is the first time Hiroshima has taken the lead engineering role in developing the Mazda/Ford supermini. The previous generation - which was built in Spain as well as Japan - was largely developed at Ford's UK Dunton R&D centre. Apart from essentially carryover 1.3 and 1.5-litre engines (Australia takes only the 1.5), and five-speed manual or four-speed automatic gearboxes, the 2 is a clean-sheet design with ambitious sales targets.

In its best year, Mazda produced 130,000 previous-gen 2s, but with the new model, it expects to top 200,000 per year, with Australia taking a modest 800-900 a month from late September. Still, that's 50 percent higher than the outgoing model, a not unreasonable ambition given the apparent desirability of the new model.

Our drive - lapping a circuit of an Austrian driver-training centre - wasn't ideal; the track's smooth surface, broken only by a few half-hearted bumps on one corner, was hardly indicative of Aussie roads. But two key, often mutually exclusive, characteristics were combined here: the 2 is both brilliantly easy to drive and yet more sporting than most rivals.

Major controls, like the clutch and gearchange, are light and fluent in action. The gearlever, mounted high on the central console, is barely a hand's width away from the (height-adjust only) wheel, and snicks between the five ratios almost as convincingly as an MX-5. The seats are on the small side but offer better than expected lateral support, and the driver's cushion can be adjusted for height.

Surprisingly, Mazda claims the front-seat hip-point is identical to the outgoing model, though first impressions suggest you sit closer to the floor. Probably because the waistline starts 40mm lower from the comparatively thin windscreen pillars. Good forward visibility is one of the 2's many virtues.

The dashboard displays a clear family connection to the MX-5, especially in the design of the console and adoption of circular air vents and contrasting alloy-like black and silver plastics. But not the instruments, which are confined to a large speedo, and tiny tacho with a digital fuel gauge. An open magazine rack, incorporated in the glove box lid, seems certain to be copied. The interior feels tight, well finished and rattle free.

Drive any small hatch on a circuit and not only does it feel underpowered, but it's hard to resist burying the right foot through the firewall. A few such laps reveal the steering is nicely judged - with only 2.75 turns, it feels quick and is well weighted, without loading up in tight corners, unusual in a car with electric power assistance.

The chassis is clearly set up to resist understeer; lift off mid-corner and the car tucks in neatly and seems undisturbed by bumps. In fact, the optional ($1000) stability control system is set to allow a degree of lift-off oversteer before it shuts down the fun. Disconnect the DSC and the 2 is transformed into a sporty-feeling hatch that's joyously chuckable - though, perhaps as a result of five days hard thrashing, the brakes feel spongy.

The ride is impossible to judge in such conditions, but the suspension seems well judged. Given Mazda's recent track record, I'd be surprised if the 2 doesn't deliver a comfortable ride, combined with reasonable body control. The engineers have also succeeded in reducing NVH levels, never a Mazda strength.

Officially, the 1.5-litre engine's 76kW (at 6000rpm) and 137Nm (at 4000rpm) are marginally down on the old car's 82kW and 141Nm, but Mazda Australia says the discrepancy is more to do with a change in test standard than any detuning.

The engine doesn't move the bar, but even by class-best standards it's smooth and impressively tractable, happy to spin beyond 6000rpm and, helped by a variable induction and sequential valve timing, almost linear in its power delivery. No doubting it feels quicker than the previous 2, though the claimed 10.4 seconds to 100km/h exactly matches the Wheels road test time for the old car. Mazda expects the 1.5 to return just over 6.0L/100km in the Australian combined fuel cycle.

There's nothing strange in the now-familiar Neo, Maxx, Genki range, which also offers an optional airbag safety package that includes DSC. The base car rides on 15-inch steel wheels, the Maxx 15-inch alloys, while the Genki gets 16-inch alloys and credible sports bodykit.

Even this brief encounter was enough to convince us that Mazda's stylish little 2 boasts a tempting roster of qualities. The inevitable head-to-head comparison with Toyota's best-selling Yaris can't come too soon. I'd put my money on the car with the Ameland styling.

IN TWO MINDS
From sketch to sign-off in five years, but will we get the three door? In June 2002, when Mazda set out to design a successor to the mini-wagon 2, the key question of packaging had still to be resolved. Would the new car continue the 'tall-boy' philosophy of the first- and second-generation Mazda Demio/2s, favoured in Japan, or adopt the small-hatchback look preferred by rival European manufacturers?

For a year, design teams in Germany and Japan developed variants on both themes into four, quarter-scale models. With pressure mounting to reduce weight, the decision to adopt the more compact and universal hatchback style came easily. The designers then combined elements from the European and Japanese models into two full-scale clays.

But chief designer Ikuo 'Speedy' Maeda (who styled the RX-8, and whose father Matasaburo Maeda was responsible for the design of the first RX-7) was still not happy. A third, more sporting proposal, drawing from the '05 Sassou concept, was developed. In March '05, it was chosen as the single-theme model.

In February '06, just 16 months before production start-up, the styling was frozen. Currently Mazda plans just one alternate body style: a three-door hatchback, sharing the same profile, that will be unveiled at the Geneva show next March. Mazda Australia, supply constrained to under 1000 2s per month, says it has yet to make a decision on local sales of the three-door.

TWO LITRE?
In the intensely competitive supermini (B-class or light car) segment, all the strongest global competitors list hot-hatch variants. Given Mazda's already impressive sporting credentials (think MPS), it's impossible to imagine Hiroshima ignoring the 2's obvious potential.

Yet program manager Shigeo Mizuno denies any such program exists. The former drivetrain engineer rejects the idea of slotting in a larger capacity, say 2.0-litre, engine into the Mazda 2.

"That leaves a shallow message," he says. "My idea - and we haven't started working on it - is that a 1.3-litre turbo would be a more friendly MPS, and combine sportiness with emotion."