Mazda3

Three significant things separate the Mazda3 from the humdrum chaff of everyday hatchbackery. Firstly, It’s exceptionally good looking. Secondly, it has a gently remarkable engine under the bonnet. And, thirdly, it’s really engaging to drive.

In a styling age wherein it’s almost unheard of to come across any single body panel that hasn’t been ruthlessly over-crimped, -folded or -etched into submission, often with scant regard for what’s happening on the adjacent panel, Mazda’s design department continues to hang its hat on the less-is-more peg to ever better effect.

The bows are a master class in how to pull off the Big Grille whilst still retaining a sharp-suited front façade that majors in width rather than height, and the bodywork flows aft thereafter with a deceptive, milled-from-a-single-billet appeal that belies the work put into the subtle curvature of the car’s flanks.

It’s not perfect. And as a picker of nits I’m not, truth be told, entirely sold on the acreage of the C pillar, from either without or within; the former giving the glasshouse a gently truncated and slightly under-generous appearance, the latter impinging on the view out from the rear seats, rendering the environment a tad chthonic for younger occupants.

On board, the cabin is classy, fuss-free, notably low on scratchy plastics and extremely well screwed together. Mazda does the snug, comfortable, driver-focused, analogue cockpit thing particularly well, even unto shunning the irritations of touch-screen technology in favour of rotary knob control that’s quick, intuitive and blissfully straightforward.

As is shutting off the ghastly lane keeping assistant which, once excommunicated, will not return with every fresh start up. Hoo, and, indeed, rah…

One teensy gripe: The air vents merely shut if you slide them too much to one side in an effort to keep the air off you, which you will do because the air-conditioning system in auto mode seems hell-bent on dislodging your toupee. I admire the simplicity of a vent design which doesn’t need a separate control to close it, but not in this case.

Standard equipment levels are appropriately high, with none of the tat you don’t want and everything you do, with the notable exception of a fabulous Bose audio system which you’ll have to go up a grade to find fitted as standard. The 3’s not inexpensive, and I had hoped to find that shoehorned aboard this Sport Lux variant…

Now, that engine… Mazda’s 2.0 litre e-Skyactiv X engine is the world’s first production petrol unit to exploit the benefits of diesel-like compression ignition. The idea being that you benefit from both the frugality and low emissions of a diesel engine and the free-revving enthusiasm of a petrol unit.

Key to its operation is the use of a highly lean, fuel- and emissions-efficient mixture of air and fuel: 2-3 times leaner than in today’s conventional engines. This mixture has so little fuel in the air that a normal engine with spark plugs cannot fire it.

Mazda already uses uniquely high compression ratios on its current petrol engines to reduce fuel consumption. This led to the idea of increasing the compression ratio even further and igniting the fuel simply by compression, as is the norm in modern diesel engines.

This concept has been tried before by several manufacturers, but the results have largely been hallmarked by either dog-rough running characteristics or an amusing selection of loud bangs and sooty faces.

Mazda’s unique solution to the problem is Spark Controlled Compression Ignition (SPCCI), which allows the engine to switch seamlessly between conventional combustion and compression ignition by using a spark to trigger both types of combustion in different ways.

Here’s how it works. In SPCCI mode, a split injection process creates separate zones of fuel-air mixture inside the combustion chamber.

First, a very lean fuel to air mixture is injected into the combustion chamber during the intake stroke, then a zone of atomised fuel is precisely injected directly around the spark plug during the compression stroke. Imagine a cherry on a cupcake, where the cherry is the richer zone, and the cake is the lean mixture.

Because of the engine’s high compression ratio, the first charge is on the verge of spontaneously combusting anyway. To ignite the mixture at the right time, that small injection of atomised fuel directly around the spark plug builds a richer core. When the spark fires, it ignites the local zone of fuel and air. This increases pressure in the combustion chamber to the point where the main volume of the lean mixture rapidly combusts.

Improving fuel economy, SPCCI works in almost all ranges of engine operation except during cold starts, initial warm-up phases and at very high load. Under these circumstances, the engine seamlessly switches to normal operation, igniting a conventional ‘stoichiometric’ fuel and air mixture of 14.7:1.

So, the technology walks a fine line between conventional combustion ignition and compression ignition, much of the former needed, it seems, to effect of the latter. It may all come across as rather more why? than wow, but the result of this intriguing technological achievement is a smooth, eager-to-rev engine which, quietly abetted by Clark Kent-mild hybrid assistance, largely does exactly what it says on the tin. And this second iteration of the unit even more so…

Right. If you haven’t nodded off, I still need to mention just how good the Mazda3 is to drive.

For starters, all for the controls are just so, perfectly weighted, accurate and easy to play with. And the car steers, grips and stops with impeccable manners and no little enthusiasm. For me, the gear change would be improved by slightly stronger springing to neutral, but the lever remains a joy to flick around the box.

And there’s a beguiling precision to the car’s body control. This isn’t a magic carpet ride; information on the road surface beneath you is continuous. But every bump and thump is registered then instantly suppressed with no lingering shudder or wobble, making for impressively supple and comfortable progress.

In all, the Mazda3 just shows what you can make of an ordinary family hatchback if you really put your mind to it. Perhaps one more generation of e-Skyactiv X will see a remarkable engine concept realise its full potential. And perhaps a small grade equipment rethink will see that Bose stereo lobbed into more lowly variants for free. At which point, I’m sold.