2011 Mazda2 Overviews

2011 Mazda2

The 2011 Mazda2 hopes to bring some of the "zoom-zoom" driving Mazda is known for to the mushrooming subcompact class.

One of those is the Mazda2. The 2011 Mazda2 has seating for five in a compact hatchback body. The Mazda2 makes some sacrifices -- cargo space is small -- but in return it promises buyers a super-cute urban runner with good city fuel economy and a nice interior. "The Mazda 2 is not a breakthrough performance,” Edmunds explains.

Buyers who’ve waited to buy a super small car are in luck. If you're interested in the Mazda2, you should also check out the Mini Cooper -- but bear in mind that the Cooper, though it offers excellent performance, starts at about $4,000 more than the Mazda2.

The Mazda2 has two trims: Sport and Touring. The Touring trim adds nicer cloth seats, cruise control, a six-speaker stereo and steering-wheel mounted stereo controls. The 2011 Mazda2 Sport starts at $14,730 and the Touring model starts at $16,185.

Now you can add the 2011 Mazda 2 to that list of price-conscious hatchbacks. On the plus side, the Mazda 2 is quite sporty to drive, and indeed this is one area where Mazda is quite proud of its new entry-level car. The list of standard and available features for the Mazda is quite short, too.

Body Styles, Trim Levels, and Options
The 2011 Mazda 2 is a five-passenger, four-door subcompact hatchback that is available in two trim levels -- Sport and Touring. The Sport comes standard with 15-inch steel wheels with wheel covers, air-conditioning, full power accessories, a tilt steering wheel and a four-speaker CD/MP3 audio system with an auxiliary input jack.

The 2011 Mazda 2 is powered by a 1.5-liter inline four-cylinder engine that produces 100 horsepower and 96 pound-feet of torque. The EPA estimates fuel economy at 29 mpg city/35 mpg highway and 32 mpg combined for the manual transmission and 27/33/29 mpg for the automatic.

Safety
Standard safety features for the 2011 Mazda 2 include antilock brakes (discs in front/drums in rear), front-seat side airbags, side curtain airbags and stability and traction control. The 2011 Mazda 2's interior is comparable to other hatchbacks in this economical price range. With those rear seats in place, cargo capacity is 13.3 cubic feet, which is small for a hatchback.

This European-flavored North American city made an appropriate setting for our first drive of the Mazda Mazda2, a car aimed at small-car buyers in densely populated urban centers.

Now Mazda's updated version (they call it the third generation) for the U.S. market and Ford's first—the Mexican-built Fiesta—arrive almost simultaneously. Mazda's 1.5-liter twin-cam four is rated at exactly 100 hp, 20 hp less than Ford's 1.6-liter Duratec. It pairs to either a five-speed manual or four-speed automatic.

Mazda's 29 city/35 mpg highways rating with the manual makes it the most fuel-efficient car the company has ever offered in North America.

Not quite offsetting the power output and transmission differences, though, is that Mazda has been far more diligent about paring weight from the Mazda2. The five-door hatchback (Mazda doesn't offer the four-door sedan that is Ford's base model) weighs only 2306 pounds with the manual gearbox, and 53 pounds more with the automatic. That's about 250 pounds lighter than the Ford and a crucial element of Mazda's effort to give its car street creed, despite the power disadvantage.

The low-inertia motor and tuning of the electric power steering made it just about the best unit we've experienced in a front-wheel-drive car in terms of feel and precision. The car felt agile and lively and carved through the corners admirably.