New Mazda3 goes Bauhaus

The all-new Mazda3 sedan will debut a striking new Bauhaus-style roofline when it makes its world premiere alongside the fourth-generation Mazda3 hatchback at the Los Angeles motor show on November 28.

Pictured here for the first time in an official teaser image – three weeks after the 2019 Mazda3 hatch emerged in an official teaser video – the all-new small sedan takes yet another step away from the original Alfa Romeo-inspired Mazda3.

The darkened teaser shot, which also shows more of the next Mazda3 hatchback’s ‘faster’ rear-end design, only reveals the upper half of the new Mazda3 sedan’s side profile.

But it’s enough to see the small four-door’s completely rounded roofline, drawing similarities to the original Audi TT – the most iconic example of Audi’s Bauhaus-inspired design philosophy.

Along with a different C-pillar treatment, the Mazda3 sedan’s clean, understated side profile design – complete with full-length glazing uninterrupted by a B-pillar – should set it apart from both the Mazda3 hatch and its key competitors.

Mazda says the new 3, as previewed at the 2017 Tokyo motor show by the striking Kai concept (pictured below), “adopts a more mature interpretation of Kodo design that embodies the essence of Japanese aesthetics”.

That may be so, but it’s also as close as any mainstream Japanese sedan has come to the simplistic ‘form follows function’ design ethos established by Bauhaus School in Germany between the world wars.

Time will tell if the elegant design proves a hit with customers, which made the outgoing Mazda3 the Japanese brand’s best-seller globally and Australia’s most popular small car after the Toyota Corolla.

There’s little else in this evening’s press release we didn’t already know, including that the new Mazda3 will ride on a next-generation SKYACTIV vehicle architecture that will underpin all future Mazda models.

The new Mazda3 will also debut world-first SKYACTIV-X spark-controlled compression-ignition petrol engine technology dubbed SPCCI, which is claimed to combine turbo-diesel torque and efficiency with the refinement and responsiveness of a high-performance four-cylinder petrol engine.

Together, the new platform and engine tech should improve the next Mazda3’s performance, dynamics, refinement and economy.

Watch this space for more details before and during the LA show in three weeks, before the 2019 Mazda3 is launched globally in January and released in Australia in the first half of next year.