ON FRONT PAG E N O R T H E AST V I C TO R I A , A L P S A N D H I G H CO U N T RY
AUGUST 12 - 18, 2016
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MAZDA 3: Slimmer lights front and back give the facelifted Mazda3 a wider look.
Mazda is smarter By EWAN KENNEDY
In this instance, Hitoshi Takeshita, the general manager of the product division attended the new Mazda3 event in Queensland. Takeshita-san explained that the changes to the styling, chiefly a revised grille, and slimmer lights front and back give the facelifted Mazda3 a wider look. Inside, there are changes to the decorative areas of the trim. Perhaps most importantly, the side ‘wings’ on the instrument display panel are a bit larger, and therefore faster to read. Takeshita then went on to explain the new Mazda ‘G-Vectoring Control’ system
that uses electronic control to improve chassis balance. This senses movements of the steering wheel by the driver and modifies the amount of torque to each of the front wheels to change the amount of grip that’s required. Torque is restored when the system sees the car is in balance again, thus bringing the back wheels into play. Complicated? Yes, and there’s a lot more to it than this necessarily brief explanation gives. Try Google for deeper explanations, ‘extremetech.com’ is a good one. Anyway, enough of the theory. We were able to spend a number of
hours at the Driver Training Centre at Mount Cotton, near Brisbane doing comparison tests between the just superseded Mazda3 and the revised one. This consisted of driving the two cars over the same course, first on the wet skidpan, then on sections of the road course. Note that the Mt Cotton facility is not a racetrack, rather it has been designed to simulate real Australian country roads. There are no runoff areas and quite a few places where you can hurt the car, and yourself, if you make a mistake. The testing was done by setting the cars on constant speeds using the cruise control.
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MAZDA has never been a company to follow other auto makers and the updated Mazda3 is a prime example of this. While it has received a mild facelift, the main emphasis is on what you can’t see, with major changes to the steering and suspension systems. Safety, long a strong point with the Mazda Australia organisation, has been further enhanced. It has become customary for Mazda Australia to fly senior engineers from its Japanese head office for car launches downunder. A real honour to our local guys and gals that shows the high esteem in which they are held.
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