[DragonRider1]

We love the speed 3 and with the price break it's even better, however, when we looked at that vs a few other cars for the wife (yep, her car) we found the insurance on the Speed 3 was going to cost as much as our Lotus, '93 Miata, '99 Jeep Wrangler, and her '93 camry (she was replacing it with the new car) COMBINED! It was ludicrous!!! This is when they first came out. not sure if it was any better. The super stiff clutch pedal was the second deterrent. Her ideal version would be the Speed 3 suspension with the non-turbo drivetrain in the hatch. They don't make that unfortunately.


She ended up with the Civic Si sedan which is fun, but has the worlds worst fly-by-wire throttle (happy hanging anyone? Let off the gas and it will stay for as much as 1.2 seconds before it starts to taper down..This is NORMAL!!??! And no, it didn't do that during the short pre-purchase test drive). Even with the Si, she still longs for that Speed 3...

Lastly, have you noticed the rediculously high resale value of the Mazda 3 hatchbacks? Not sure on the sedans but 2-3 year old hatches are going for just a few thousand less than new even with 40k miles on them! The only other car in that range that I know of with that sort of resale is the Mini Cooper. I am not certain, but I don't recall Audi having that strong a resale though I do recall horror stories about their warranty claims...