Review: there's the Mazda3 Sport GT and then there's VW's Golf

On a dewy Sunday morning – early, early – I grabbed the keys to a new Mazda3 Sport GT hatchback and smiled.

“I’m gonna enjoy this,” I murmured to no one but myself.

This infotainment interface screen is functional.

And then it was up the Sea-to-Sky Highway, a Slinky-like stretch that runs along the fjords of West Vancouver to Squamish, then onto to Whistler, B.C., a favorite of skiers, mountain bikers and the gastronomic crowd who fill up the Barefoot Bistro, Araxi’s and Trattoria di Umberto.

Aside from Volkswagen’s latest version of the Golf (a brilliant but more expensive hatchback), I cannot imagine a $25,000-ish compact that is better suited to dance along this 120-km run – especially if it’s bare of snow and sleet, and other drivers, as it was this Sunday. I like the Mazda3 Sport a lot and you should, too.

Mazda is perhaps the only mainstream automaker that fully embraces the pleasures and rewards of actually driving, unabashedly, unreservedly. Honda has also paid some lip service to this idea, but Mazda makes “Driving Matters” and “Zoom Zoom” the centrepiece of its entire advertising and branding push.

“We love cars,” Mazda CEI Masamichi Kogai tells every reporter holding a microphone. You would consider a Mazda, and most especially a Mazda3 Sport, if tight steering, responsive brakes, and flat cornering trump the joys of Apple Carplay and Android Auto – though the Mazda3 is compatible on that infotainment front.

Lots of plastic…

But let’s be clear: Mazda’s entirely functional infotainment interface is unadorned and visually uninteresting, despite it’s recently updated screen. It’s exceptionally user-friendly, though not a work of art – a tablet-like piece atop the centre stack with a screen that operates by touch or joystick/button controller on the centre console.

But if you’re a Picasso of driving, the top-of-the-Mazda3-line GT – starting at $25,000 – is worthy of its own showing. The engine is a lively 2.5-litre four-cylinder (184 horsepower) and in my tester the power went to the front wheels via a six-speed automatic – a no-charge option in a car that comes standard with a very good manual gearbox.

Ah, options. My tester had $4,550 worth of extras, including a “Premium” package that loaded me up with leather upholstery, power-adjustable driver’s seat, premium stereo and navigation, adaptive cruise control, lane-keeping assist, an auto-dim rearview mirror, automatic high-beam headlamps regenerative braking, satellite radio and more.

I ignored most of those upmarket features, nice as they might be, instead focusing on the razor handling and smooth ride. The 3 is predicable and responsive; you are not surprised by its responses.

On top of that, the car is available with something called G-Vectoring Control (GVC), an electronic bit of wizardry that matches engine power to steering. This little bit of technology is subtle but effective at improving handling performance.

How so? By reducing engine torque for an instant when you turn the steering wheel in a curve, a bit of weight moves to the front wheels. That adds grip and this helps you pivot around a corner. If you are a skier, you do something like this when you turn – just a bit of weight towards the tips, gently unweighting the tails, and then pivot around the apex.

At the end of my drive, I paused a moment to sip a take-out Starbucks while I took in the car’s cabin. Nothing fancy here, just straight ahead stuff with clean gauges, nice but hard plastic and even a 60/40 split rear seatback. Pleasant enough but not particularly special as a design piece.

The exterior is another story entirely. A gem of gentle curves and balanced proportions, with a distinctive grille up front and no excessive brightwork to blind you.