Throwing a New Curve at Small-Car Shoppers
TODAY'S youngsters might be forgiven for assuming that the box was born flat, that music always fit in a digital postage features or that economy cars have always been safe, stylish and stuffed.
These innocents have no note point for the visual and mechanical calamities of yore. Names like Pacer and Beau, Omni and Citation, will be met with blank looks, as will tales of hardier generations sanding away rust or trudging through snow when another minuscule junker died in the breakdown lane.
Coming from Hyundai, whose own unpretentious cars once seemed as disposable as butane lighters, the redesigned 2012 Elantra shows how definitely things have changed. As more Americans embrace flat cars as a hedge against fuel prices, automakers are returning the hug with compacts that do believable impressions of larger, pricier machines.
They're typically a tad slower and their 4-cylinder engines a bit louder; a commuter may suffer the indignity of having to manually patch up a seat. But details aside, these cars have surely grown up.
Not only is it an bad look, but it's also exponentially absurd because most cars get their locomotive air through vents below the bumper, not through the grille. Disappointing in the new 3: Mazda pioneered the use of spur plastics in the 2004 Mazda3 and more »
2012 facelift Mazda3 featuring the enthusiastically acclaimed 2.0-liter gasoline apparatus Skyactiv. It showcases the car's customization undeveloped with factory parts. The ingredients of the Axela Spor file, on the outside, front air dam skirt, rear bumper,
Carscoop (blog)This copy features exclusively designed front bumper and head lights, a new signature wing, a element of Mazda's new design theme 'KODO - Anima of Motion -,' 19-inch alloy wheels (by weds), KENSTYLE care for under skirt, as well as a chrome rear reflector Mazda to Launch Customized Versions of CX-5, Mazda3, RX-8, MX-5 et al at Tokyo all 20 scandal articles »