Spoke to the sales manager at Jeff Haas Mazda in Houston yesterday. He mentioned that he didn't know when batch one would arrive (I liked his honesty) but he guessed around mid July (about 3 weeks later than he originally hoped). I told him the good news that MP2 (Mass Production Job 2 for USA market) had started on Monday 12th May.

The big news was that his dealership had been awarded an extra (unordered) car that can he CANNOT sell (even if someone offers $5k over MSRP for it) that will arrive with (or perhaps just before) the batch 1 vehicles. This car is a test drive vehicle, initially for all the preorder people and then for normal potential customers wanting test drives.

Interesting - this is what the Mazda USA rep told me would happen at the Denver Auto Show but that seemed to have dropped off the RADAR screen since.

She had told me that Mazda was going to try and get a set of demo vehicles out in late May for test drives and such as they knew that was the only way most dealers would have a car around to test drive...

Just got off the phone with my dealer - I can confirm that. My dealer is also getting a car only for show. It will be in the showroom but Mazda said no one is allowed to drive the car and the dealer cannot sell it until October.:eek: