My family has owned the mazda 3 series since 1981, this gen is the best and actually appealing

http://images.classiccars.com/classi...otege%2Bes.jpg
http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j9...6/IMG_3661.jpg
http://imganuncios.mitula.net/mazda_...7940995129.jpg

Have extensively driven the GT and both the manual and automatic GS.

GT handles with plenty of confidence, very Euro-esque and the transmission felt great, this was directly comparing it to the E90 I drove to the showroom.

GT has plenty of plenty of power, good torque, overall very pleasant road manners and a relatively quiet ride for its class.

GS is a step down in terms of power and useless extra electronic stuff from the GT, that's pretty much it. Handles a bit looser but that's expected as the GT has a slightly different suspension tune.

I hated driving the manual GS, the tiny sorry excuse of a digital tach was like an afterthought and was so difficult to read I absolutely despised it.

The hatch looks amazing to me, one of the most aggressive looking cars on the street right now, 100x more so than the awkward Civics of late...

This car looks like a awkwardly bulbous scaled down crossover.

However, what I car about more is buld quality and driving dynamics. It sounds like they hit the mark there.