Regarding the posts about the bumper smile, believe me, when I saw these cars a year ago, my first impression was, :shocked::crazy:
:shrug:.
I met one of the designers for the Mazda 3 line up and my business partner (whom owned a 2007 Speed 3) said what the heck were you guys thinking when you did the front bumper like that? Majority ruled and the team voted for the current look.
So now it's been a year and yes, the smile still hasn't grown on me, but when I'm behind the wheel, I'm grinning from ear to ear. :laugh:
gameOVER, which one do I like the best? Honestly, my heart is still goes with my SVT. Thinking out loud, reasons I feel I could not let the SVT go (unless I was given a satisfactory amount of money), it was the first of this group of cars. I bought it off a friend of mine whom ran it into the ground in only 9 months of ownership, I brought it back to being showroom condition. Having owned a 95 Contour SE, I have always liked these cars at one point owned both SE and SVT. Just a note, the SVT probably has the least amount of "power under the curve" as compared to the other cars, but another reason for me liking it, is the sound of the V6. The other 3 cars are 4 cylinder.
If the Contour wasn't in the group, then for shear straight line speed and shear FEAR, the SRT4 is the first pick. It's raw but it's a hold onto your butts car that needs full attention when running at 23psi of boost with the big turbo. While rolling through 3rd gear, if I floor it, the front tires will let loose when full boost hits. That's nuts, especially at nearly 80mph when this is all happening.
The Speed 3 and the Cobalt SS are both stock when it comes to power mods, but they are both equally fast and for stock, handle really well and stop really well with their factory big brakes. On my other two cars, I had to upgrade to aftermarket big brakes, but as good as the aftermarket brakes are, I wouldn't be taking the SRT4 or the SVT to a track day, at least not without upgrading to 1.1" thick rotors all around.
I like all of my cars, but as time progresses and manufacturers install better go fast goodies from the factory, it hardly seems necessary to mod the heck out of a car any more. Needless to say, mods will happen in the future, I just can't help myself.
