One of the best aspects of the modern Mazda’s renaissance was the appearance of the Mazda Performance Series. Ironically, the two sportiest Mazdas, the RX-8 and MX-5, never got MPS models - the hot MPS badge was reserved for Mazda’s 3 and 6 hatch and sedan models.
The revamped Mazda6 range - and with a new 3 not too far off - brought a whole host of improvements, but something not on the list was ‘that badge’ with those three letters.
Initially, Mazda denied that it was going to release any MPS variants, but with the popularity of the first generation, we all knew it was only a matter of when Mazda would change its mind, rather than if.
Fortunately for Mazda fans, the company is preparing to officially announce the MPS model of the 2010 Mazda3. Unfortunately no information is available on the new hot hatch aside from its existance.
What is on most minds is what will be powering the new ‘hottie’.
The torquey, tractable and free-spinning donk was the highlight of the last car. It makes sense that Mazda would ‘upgrade’ from the previous version, and so we should expect something bigger than the 2.3 litre turbo.
With the Mazda6 receiving a 2.5 litre variant of the MZR block, strapping a hairdryer to the side would seem the logical choice.
[ Carscoop ]
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They better taught up that chassis to suit the engine!
Frankly, the current generation MPS has TOO much torque and power for the chassis, and it struggles to put the power down properly.
I Believe the New MPS needs to be All Wheel Drive…then it can compete against cars like the wrx/sti or ralliart lancer/evo
I agree, for FWD it’s too much power and torque, but that they have is a fantastic vehicle for sure - needs to be AWD
hmm, i might try the hairdryer thing on my car..
Hopefully Mazda will implement a similar system to the old Mazda6 MPS.
Pull the handbrake and it goes to FWD (if it was in AWD mode at the time) so the tail swings around, and when you drop the handbrake it shock-loads the propshaft so the car stays sideways.
Leaving the car FWD until it detects slip is not my preferred way of doing things, but making sure the car isn’t AWD from a standing start also helps to mitigate the driveline stress issues that comes with hard launching such cars.