Next Mazda3 revealed

Next year’s replacement for Australia’s top-selling car, the Mazda3, has emerged in a series of grainy digital renderings leaked to Auto Express.

The four images – in which the entire front, rear and side of the new hatchback, as well as the new sedan’s side profile can be seen – were reportedly delivered to the UK media outlet’s office in an unmarked envelope.

Mazda told Auto Express the images were official digital renderings, but wouldn't admit they showed the next-gen '3', which is expected to go on sale globally by the end of next year. But the renderings certainly appear to show how Mazda’s new Kodo design language will translate to the Japanese brand’s vital new small car.

The images reveal a sleek new front-end for both the hatch and sedan, dominated by the full-width signature ‘wing’ first seen on the all-new Mazda6, which made its Australian debut at yesterday’s Sydney motor show and goes on sale here earlier than expected in December.

The pointier front-end features a dramatically larger trapezoidal grille and radically swept-back headlights, while the more heavily chiselled bodysides wear prominent wheel-arches that form a rising, wave-shaped shoulder line and a narrower glasshouse under a coupe-like roofline. 

Both the sedan and hatch have a much ‘faster’ rear windscreen and, while both models feature twin exhaust outlets, the edgy new hatchback’s rear-end in particular appears to borrow plenty of Alfa Romeo design cues.

As we reported from last month’s Paris motor show, Mazda’s global best-seller will be fast-tracked into production next year despite the current car being less than four years old, and will form the basis of Mazda’s first hybrid model.

carsales also reported exclusively yesterday that the new Mazda3 will be produced in plug-in hybrid form with a range-extending rotary engine – initially only for lease in Japan next year.

Apart from wearing the edgy new Kodo styling theme first seen on the CX-5 and now Mazda6, the new 3 will be based on a variation of the 6’s 100kg-lighter new SKYACTIV platform, with power coming from the same 2.0-litre SKYACTIV petrol engine seen in the CX-5.

The new Mazda6’s 2.5-litre SKYACTIV petrol four should also power a next-generation Mazda SP25, while a smaller (potentially 1.6-litre) SKYACTIV turbodiesel engine is understood to be in development for the new 3. 

All three engines will be matched with both six-speed manual and automatic SKYACTIV transmissions – a combination that should bring average fuel consumption savings of up to 30 per cent.

Mazda’s next 3 will replace the most popular model in Australia’s booming small-car segment, which will soon be joined by two all-new volume-selling models priced from under a sharp $19,990 – Toyota’s new Corolla hatch and the born-again Nissan Pulsar hatch and sedan.

While new Ford Focus, Hyundai i30 and Opel Astra models are the most recent additions to Australia’s single biggest vehicle segment, the new Mazda3 will be beaten on sale next year by Volkswagen’s redesigned Golf 7 and a new Kia Cerato.

That will leave Holden’s Australian-made Cruze as one of the oldest models in the class, with a homegrown replacement not due on sale until late 2015.

Mazda’s existing 3 - which is currently on sale from $20,990 drive-away, representing a saving of around $3000 – is neck-and-neck with Toyota’s all-conquering HiLux in a battle to become Australia’s most popular new vehicle in 2012.