As a long-standing part of the tribe known as Spare the Manuals!—some would say long-standing sufficient to be its senior statesman—I'm continuously chuffed to learn of a car that offers a gearbox requiring you to blend your claim cogs.
There's something almost planning the activities of your right arm and cleared out leg with those of your throttle foot, all in the interest of smooth forward advance, that locks in the intellect and ratchets up association in the act of driving in a way that triggers little, consistent dosages of happiness.
That's likely why the portion of my brain that expects pleasurable encounters clicked on when I pulled open the entryway of the Mazda 3 2.5 S Hatchback Premium and spied a thickset manual shifter growing from the center support.
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Eureka! We as of now like the offbeat small hatchback for its aggro looks and wonderful deportment, but this is the one show in the 3 lineup that offers something our favorite hot bring forth, the current 10Best-winning Volkswagen GTI, does not: a manual gearbox.
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Could the do-it-yourself six-speed transmission be the interesting arrabbiata sauce that changes the charming Mazda 3 formula into something mouthwatering—a practical elective to the spunky Vee-Dub? Time for a taste.
The Importance of a Well-Integrated Manual
While I concede that the nearness of a DIY gearbox evokes a inconspicuous Pavlovian reaction profound in my intestine, it does nothing to ensure that the driving involvement is going to be out of the conventional.
Any gearbox, no matter how fulfilling its move activity, has to work concordantly with the motor, clutch, and throttle. The rest of the car that it lives in checks as well: A smooth gearbox can't make a awful car great, but a terrible car can make a awesome manual transmission irrelevant.
No stresses approximately any of that with the Mazda 3 2.5 S Premium Hatchback. Nearly everything approximately it feels, well, premium, more like what you'd anticipate if it were wearing a BMW, Beginning, or Mercedes badge.
The feel-good begins the minute you slip interior. From the driver's situate, you overview an insides secured in delicate materials: faux dark calfskin on the sprint and entryways, with chocolate-brown embeds in the dark calfskin seats.
French creases in differentiating color abound—on the entryways, sprint, center comfort, and center armrest. Harder materials are generally kept underneath eye level. Touches of metal trim brighten the cabin. The instrument cluster is domestic to circular tach and speedo gages in conventional white-on-black.
The by and large impact is elegantly controlled and suddenly wealthy; photographs have a difficult time doing it equity. There are bounty of standard highlights interior as well, counting a Bose 12-speaker stereo, control driver's situate with control lumbar and memory, warmed front seats, leather-covered directing wheel, and a moonroof.
Our test car was energized up with the show-car-like Soul Ruddy Gem Metallic paint for $595, senseless lit up door-sill plates for $575, and $190 worth of all-weather floor mats.
A Surprisingly Luxurious Interior
The premium vibe proceeds when you fire up and drive off. The actually suctioned 2.5-liter inline-four radiates a calm, buttered-rum murmur that sounds costly. And the central center of this show, the six-speed manual gearbox, is a sweet complement to the 3's four-cylinder.
Clutch activity is easy and simple to tweak for smooth getaways and shifts. The shifter slides through the gears much like those on BMWs of the later past; it's well separated from vibration, and each toss lands delicately at the conclusion of the lever's travel. It feels like money.
Of course, with fair 186 drive, the Mazda can't coordinate the 241-hp VW's execution. The GTI misplaced its manual as of the 2025 show year, and with its standard dual-clutch programmed, the current GTI charges to 60 mph in fair 5.6 seconds; for the record, our 2022 long-term GTI with the six-speed manual did the deed in 5.8.
The stick-shift 3 takes 7.0 seconds to get to the mile-a-minute check. The hole broadens assist in the quarter-mile, with the current GTI zipping through in 14.2 seconds at 100 mph, whereas the manual-gearbox 3 gets there in 15.6 seconds at 91 mph. (Our manual long-term GTI secured the separate in 14.3 seconds at 101 mph.)
The Mazda counters that execution shortage with a powertrain that copies down on the upscale vibe you feel in the liberally outfitted cabin. The motor revs effectively and so easily and unobtrusively that you have to strain to listen its quieted snarl—even when working it difficult sufficient to extricate brisk acceleration.
It's fair plain fun to snick-snick your way up and down through the Mazda's gearbox. And since you are doing the shifting—rather than a computer modified for most extreme fuel economy—you tend to actually move through in-town activity with the revs higher and out of the sluggish, low-rpm carry zone.
In activity, the 3 replied indeed slight developments of my right foot without delay, which makes it feel zippier than its 60-mph time would lead you to expect. The 3 Hatchback's little-luxury-car feel plays out in the way it goes down the street as well.
Its directing is exact and comfortingly dynamic but light. Its suspension facilitates over the bigger swells and bumps—the ride is on the delicate, compliant side of "sporty"—though it registers the sharp impacts of asphalt creases and imperfections with a fresh "thunk.
Smooth Performance and a Sweet Six-Speed
With our neighborhood streets either slathered in street salt or buried beneath a coat of snow, there wasn't much opportunity to press the 3's dealing with.
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A hurl around a few dry entrance inclines, be that as it may, shown it had sensible balance when inclined on. Its unassumingly measured 215/45R-18 Toyo Proxes A40 all-season elastic felt like it given conventional grasp, which a 0.88-g skidpad execution sponsored up. The most later GTI we tried scored a 0.91-g result.
Impressively, the Mazda 3 bring forth was on standard with the braking of the more performance-oriented GTI. It ceased from 70 mph in 164 feet, or five feet sooner than in the beginning test of our long-term GTI, which too wore 18-inch wheels wrapped in all-season tires.
Numbers aside, the GTI is effortlessly the more dialed-in driver's car; it steers more honed, corners more sure-footedly, rides more rigidly, and is all-around sportier—the one that'll make you smile more extensive when the street squirms. Which makes this a story of two cars. Both are concordant, total bundles, each with its claim particular character.
VERDICT: Dressed for victory and favored with the charm of a stick-shift, the Mazda 3 Hatchback is an charming GTI alternative.
The Mazda 3 2.5 S Premium Hatchback is a sweetheart in its claim right, a milder, gentler, more lavish car that's still bounty of fun to drive and at a cost that undermines the GTI by a few thousand bucks.
All great. And at that point there's its well-honed six-speed gearbox. For this acknowledged part of the Spare the Manuals! tribe, that's sufficient to make it a reasonable elective to VW's hot bring forth.