World of Wheels

Mazda3 milestone

By Philippe Crowe

We new the Mazda3 was popular and have always been a fan of the model. Mazda Canada just reached a new milestone with this fun car to drive and announced on March the 25th that it sold its 250,000th Mazda3 in the Canadian market.

This milestone happens just over 5 years after the car went on sale. The Mazda3 was introduced late in 2003 as a 2004 model (shown) as an all new replacement for the Mazda Protege.

Currently the #1 selling car in Canada for 2009 the Mazda3 continues to sell well and has increased its share of the compact segment to 14.6%. As of the end of February Mazda achieved an overall 5.8% share of the Canadian market. Adding to this is the all new redesigned second generation 2010 Mazda3, which has been available in Canadian showrooms since January 27th. Even more impressive is that 1 in 4 Mazda3’s sold in February were the redesigned model, an impressive feat considering the car has been in the marketplace for just over one month.

Quickly climbing towards the top of the sales charts after its debut, the Mazda3 quickly became second in overall Canadian car sales behind the Honda Civic, and remained so from 2005 through 2007. Even with the first generation of the Mazda3 at the end of its product lifecycle annual sales remain relatively strong, with its second best sales year coming in 2008.

Worldwide, there have been over 2 million Mazda3’s built.

Orange oil in Yokohama's tires

Adding new meaning to the term “Peel Out,” Bob Faieta and Melanie Snow were both double winners on Yokohama Tire Corporation’s new eco-friendly, orange oil race tire in the Patrón GT3 Challenge held March 20th at Sebring International Raceway in Florida.
Driving Porsche 911 GT3 Cup cars equipped with Yokohama Tire’s ADVAN® ENV-R1™, which made its debut at Sebring, both drivers started from the pole and swept their respective classes on Thursday and Friday.  It’s the first time in more than a century of automobile racing a series has utilized sustainable tire technology on each competing vehicle.
The ADVAN ENV-R1, the Official Spec Tire of the GT3 Challenge, reduces petroleum by approximately 10 percent and increases recyclability while maintaining the high performance levels of previous race slick compounds.  “In its race debut this weekend, the tire has performed well with lap times remaining consistent throughout both races,” said Mark Chung, director, corporate strategy and planning.  “Several drivers have told me how impressed they were with the drivability of the tire.  I’d like to congratulate Bob and Melanie on superb performances.”
Faieta, the Platinum Class winner, has now won four GT3 Challenge races in a row.  Snow, the Gold Class champ, is on a roll with 15 consecutive podium finishes.  Both racers attributed their success in-part to the strong-performing and consistent ENV-R1 tires.
“My Yokohama tires just kept going strong and even got stronger toward the end of the race,” said Faieta of Tujunga, California.  “It’s a testament to the new tire; a really awesome product.”
Yokohama’s orange oil race technology will transfer to passenger tires when the dB Super E-specTM becomes available this summer in sizes designed for Toyota Prius, Honda Civic Hybrid and other fuel-efficient models.

Adaptive headlights on the Mazda3 GT-E

By Philippe Crowe

The redesigned Mazda3 sports a lot of features usually found on bigger cars. One of the aspects that set the 2010 Mazda3 apart from others in the compact car class is the attention Mazda’s engineers paid to the car’s lighting system. On all Mazda3 GT models, bi-xenon, High Intensity Discharge (HID) headlamps have now become standard equipment.
    The headlamps, which use a single xenon lamp in each front light assembly, produce both the high beam and the low beam. This comes courtesy of an electric arc which causes the gas to discharge its light particles, which then glow to generate a bright light that closely resembles the white color of daylight.
    With the optional GT-E package on the 2010 Mazda3, the headlamps gain automatic levelling as well as an Adaptive Front Lighting System (AFS) which, according to Mazda, is a Canadian first in this segment of the market. Typically seen on high end luxury vehicles the system provides optimal illumination as it automatically swivels the low beams left or right in accordance with steering angle and vehicle speed, casting light in the direction the driver wishes to proceed and greatly improving visibility when cornering at night.
The system swivels the headlights up to 15 degrees either to the right or left, illuminating the area around a point that it determines the car will reach three seconds later.

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