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Test Drives

2003 MazdaSpeed Protege
Michael Frank


Overview
Mazda isn't a big carmaker.

Last year the Japanese firm that's controlled by Ford Motor--Ford owns 33% of Mazda--sold only 258,213 cars in the U.S. Toyota, by comparison, sold nearly 1.8 million cars (including Lexus) to American buyers in 2002.

But as we've learned from other, once small carmakers, like Honda (nyse: HMC - news - people ) in the 1970s and 1980s, and BMW of late, being small doesn't mean you can't make a big impact. Which Mazda has done, in fact. The cute Miata convertible is the best-selling sports car of all time, and the RX-7 was one of the best-loved sports cars in recent history. (The new RX-8 may well live to be as influential, and there will be a reborn RX-7 down the line as well.)

HIGHS:
Superbly balanced handling, quick motor, ironed-out interior.

LOWS:
Torque-steer, wing on the back, inscrutable audio controls.

But Mazda cannot live by sporty cars alone, right? Well, maybe wrong. We actually think a niche player like Mazda might grow fatter by doing what it seems to do best, which is to sell spirited, small cars that appeal to younger buyers who are generally on a tight budget. And Mazda truly has the chops in this arena. Stack up the newest Protegé versus the competition in the same, $15,000 ballpark, and Mazda spanks all comers for handling and a high fun factor. And that competition includes the likes of Honda, Ford (nyse: F - news - people ), Dodge and Chevy, as well as expertly youth-aimed products, the Volkswagen (otc: VLKAY - news - people ) Golf and Mitsubishi Lancer, neither of which, in base trim, have much going for them once you get past the glam ad campaigns.

And the logic of a Mazda that starts by selling small, inexpensive cars to young buyers who can afford them--and eventually sells larger, plusher sedans like the excellent new 6i and 6s--makes eminent sense.

Still, getting the buzz among young buyers these days requires either cute design (read VW), expensive marketing or excellent street cred. Interestingly, the latter may be the cheapest approach of all, at least in the case of Mazda, which already had endemic engineering know-how. Also, if you're smart about it, as Mazda is, you don't make too many of your one-off hot cars--say, 2,500 a year per iteration. Subaru learned just how effective such guerilla tactics can be when sales of its WRX utterly changed the average Subaru aspirant from tweedy college professor types to their 25-year-old recently graduated male students.

Which brings us full circle, to the $19,980 MazdaSpeed Protegé and the resurrection of the MazdaSpeed brand, an essentially stillborn skunk works that has knocked off a few special-edition cars in the past but is now charged to be the company's speed-freak fixer, akin to what BMW does with its M Division, albeit for a decidedly rubber- rather than leather-soled audience.

MazdaSpeed's first mission: Add about $5,000 worth of fangs to the fun little Protegé. That is, take what started as a good thing with the MP3 version of the car, and add 30 horsepower (from 140 hp to 170 hp). Alter the character of the suspension a bit, too. Give the car wider, lower tires and a lower ride height, but make sure not to go too far--Mazda is about fun first, and too many mods might result in a four-door that only testosterone-poisoned boys will want. Yes, you want them, but you want them when they become thirtysomething dads, too.

So, how'd the MazdaSpeed team do? Very well indeed--but the shocker here is that this is a car you don't have to be 25 to love.

One thing to get straight from the start--this car is a compromise. Yes, it's been turbocharged, its suspension is stiffer, etc. But we've now read in several "enthusiast" magazines about how the car isn't quite this or isn't quite that, with "this" and "that" representing a bad boy mien to match the spicy orange mica paint scheme of our tester and the ridiculous spoiler on the deck lid. (By the way, get the car sans airfoil and with black paint--a good idea, unless you really like traffic court.)

The thing is, great cars like the aforementioned Subaru WRX aren't painful to sit in, or to drive. They aren't one-track, that is, and work well whether you're stuck in traffic or barnstorming through the twisty bends of your favorite state highway.

But before we get to said tire scorching, take a tour of the interior.

Climb aboard this spunky econobox and note the doorsills that subtly announce in etched aluminum: MAZDASPEED. Grab the two-tone leather wheel (in silver and saddle black with contrasting orange stitching); also take in the additional silver accents on the seats, which are made of an odd mélange of materials that somehow really works. First there are rubberized inserts on the inside of the seat bolsters, the better to keep your back and hindquarters planted when you buzz around a tight off-ramp. But besides those sticky patches, these perches feature a suede-like terrycloth that gives the car a more upscale appearance than, say, the seats in the Ford SVT Focus. We also like the perforated open weave of fabric in the seat centers, which keeps your back cool when your adrenalin gets pumping.


Seats are supportive and grippy.


Other alterations to the stock Protegé interior include more suede-like trim on the doors, and both a tighter gearbox and shift mechanism from aftermarket parts maker Sparco, and Sparco's sporty metal pedals. 2003.5 models, just coming online, will feature an in-house-tuned gearbox and pedals.

Whether you get the 2003 or 2003.5 model, you'll still get the mother of all stock audio units, an in-dash CD/MP3 tuner called the Excelon KDC-MP919 made by Kenwood. This slammin' (to use the vernacular) 450-watt system has six speakers, plus an 8-inch subwoofer and a 250-watt amplifier. Should you desire, the mechanism lets you listen to CDs or MP3 tracks encoded in either the CD-R or CD-RW format. We tested it out listening to both Bach (a composer we doubt the average buyer of this car has heard of) and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Eminem also sounded, well, loud on this system. Actually, everything we heard from this soundstage on wheels sounded terrific.

Ordinarily we wouldn't dwell much more on a car's sound system, but we have to tell you a few more things about this Kenwood setup. We dearly love the faceplate that folds over to show a generic black panel when you shut the engine down; as far as any bystander is concerned, this car doesn't even have an audio head unit. Smart.

But we despise the so-called MegaMotion readout, which annoyingly plays "liquid" animation in blue LCD glory, or shows constant graphic equalizer output, even at night when it's a terrible distraction. We also can't fathom the purpose of dinky buttons to control all this gadgetry, or why the graphic equalizer functions are all set up for adjustment of each frequency in a painfully arduous scroll-through menu. Whatever happened to meters you could adjust by hand, with human-sized fingers? Sure, you get great tunes, but why make the interface so annoying?


Oooh--sporty racing pedals with rubber inserts (for better grip).


One more note on the interior before we get to the driving goods: It's larger in here than you think. With the Protegé's 93 cubic feet of passenger volume, we fit a huge 6-by-4-foot box across the backseat and still had room in the trunk for three suitcases. The rear seats also flip down 60/40, adding more functionality. Nah, it's not going to replicate a midsize station wagon or SUV, but people who discount small cars--thinking they must have an SUV instead, especially buyers in this market who can afford only small utes--ought to take heed of the sedan market as well.

Especially because cars like the MazdaSpeed Protegé are ripsnorting fun when you let them run.

As we said, Mazda was smart with this car. It opted for aftermarket add-ons like larger, 17-inch 45-series tires; a strut tower brace up front to reduce chassis flex in turns; higher-rate springs and Tokico dampers; and beefy stabilizer bars both front and rear. But this doesn't add up to a car that's nail-hard, which is what you expect from so-called pocket-rockets like this. Instead, you get some of the best steering feel this side of a $35,000 BMW, with amazingly neutral balance, even in the hardest turns. Again, think small BMW and you have the right idea--the Mazda will eventually give up grip in turns, but you really have to push right up to the limit. And as with the best sports sedans, alarm bells ring (from your backside and from the steering wheel) well before adhesion ends.

We also have very high praise for an excellent gearbox and transmission. These, too, were reworked to handle the increased torque of the turbocharged engine, and they are beautifully mated to the engine and to your brain--you know what gear you're in just by the sound of the engine and your rate of speed.

Speaking of that motor, herein lies the upside and downside of the equation. We keep saying this Protegé is a compromise, and the engine, with its inherent peaky torque output, creates the biggest compromise of all. Sure, the turbocharger creates a lot more oomph, the better to launch this car to 60 mph in about seven seconds. But this is a front-wheel-drive machine, and despite the addition of a limited-slip differential, there's torque-steer rearing its annoying head, especially during low-speed acceleration.

The good news is you can modulate that wheel-fighting force by shifting a bit early; the 2.0-liter motor is flexible enough to run around at 2,000 rpm all day. But that cuts the turbo out of the matter, which makes for less Mazdaspeeding, and less fun.

We were dismissing other critics of this car earlier, largely because the competition for this car leans more toward firm rides in the name of performance. This count includes the $19,425 Mini Cooper S; the aforementioned SVT Focus; and, to a lesser extent, the $17,199 Nissan Sentra SE-R Spec-V, the forthcoming Dodge Neon SRT-4 and the $19,000 Honda Civic Si.

The point? The Mazda can run with that pack, at least more or less when it comes to a high fun quotient and excellent handling, but it won't beat the amalgams out of your teeth in the process.

Not being 25, this reviewer might opt for the Mini Cooper S for its amazing high-glitz interior and retro-cool factor, but there are also reasons I might consider the Mazda instead, starting with its stealth potential (in black) that, like the SVT Focus, lets you into an exclusive club where the password is whispered, not shouted. And hey, what club these days lets you in for $20,000?