The petrol-powered Ford Focus is quicker off the mark, but the diesel Mazda3 rides well at higher speeds. Pictures / David Linklater
The petrol-powered Ford Focus is quicker off the mark, but the diesel Mazda3 rides well at higher speeds. Pictures / David Linklater
Turbo-diesel Mazda3 SP22 gives Ford's excellent Focus ST a run for its money when it comes to hatchbacks with grunt
Hot hatches: It's a formula that has been providing bang for your buck for more than 40 years, and you have to love them.
Take a humble family hatchback with room for children and groceries; add lots of power, sporty steering and suspension and top it off with spoilers and sexy alloy wheels.
Sounds like an easy recipe, but in fact the great hot hatches are few and far between.
Balancing the prosaic with performance punch is a tricky business, but cult status awaits for those cars that get it right.
If you want to see how it's done, take a look at the Ford Focus ST. The Blue Oval has a rich history in this type of thing and the ST is a brilliant machine: the Focus five-door is the base, but the ST package brings a 184kW/360Nm EcoBoost 2.0-litre turbo-petrol engine, a heavily modified chassis with torque vectoring, plus interior bells and whistles that include Recaro seats and a dashtop instrument binnacle with see-me-go turbo boost gauge.
In many respects, the Focus ST is a traditional hot-hatch that's been beautifully executed. So what better way to put it to the test than pitching it against something that's a little bit left-of-centre?
Enter the Mazda3 SP22. This is not one for the hot-hatch reactionaries, because it's powered by a turbo-diesel engine. But don't mistake it for an economy-minded fleet machine: it only comes in flagship Limited specification and it has a muscular powerplant: Mazda's 2.2-litre oil-burner makes the same 129kW/420Nm that it does in the much larger and heavier CX-5 and Mazda6, giving this car the real-world performance to give the Focus a run for its money.
The SP22 is still much more economical than its ST rival, of course: 5.0 litres per 100km versus 7.2 litres for the ST. Or 129g of C02 per km compared with 169. There's another novel reason for putting these cars head-to-head: they used to be closely related. The previous Mazda3 was based on the same platform as the Focus, so they were kissing cousins underneath. No longer, now that the two brands have parted ways and Mazda has launched a whole new family of models based on an architecture it calls SkyActiv.
The Focus ST costs $54,840 and comes only with a six-speed manual gearbox. The Mazda3 SP22 Limited can be ordered with an automatic, but we're in enthusiast mode here so we've matched the Ford with Mazda's own-design six-speed manual.
It costs $49,195.
Image 1 of 14: Mazda3 SP
Photo / David Linklater
If your idea of a hot hatch is something that looks leery, it's advantage Ford. The ST really looks the part with prominent spoilers, special badging and angular 18-inch alloys. The SP22 is a striking-looking car, but doesn't look dramatically different from any other high-end Mazda3.
The only real differences are a red border around the grille (which is completely lost on our red test car) and a tiny "SkyActivD" badge on the tailgate.
You can't beat petrol power for a sporty feel off the line. The Ford's EcoBoost engine is staggeringly torquey from low speed (the peak is delivered at just 2000rpm) and incredibly flexible. The ST also has quite a soundtrack, although it's not entirely authentic: under load, a sound generator pumps a throaty noise into the cabin.
It's a legacy of Ford's nervousness about replacing the previous model's growly five-cylinder Volvo engine (it was called the XR5 here) with the EcoBoost four.
The Mazda's diesel makes an engaging noise for a compression-ignition engine, although you wouldn't call it sporty. Nor does it truly get up and go from low speed: there's a definite lag until the revs build, although the SP22 spins freely at higher speeds and will happily race to the redline in a most un-diesel-like manner.
The Focus ST is the winner in the 0-100km/h sprint: 6.5 seconds compared with 8.0 for the SP22. But out on the open road, in rolling acceleration, there is no substitute for torque and the Mazda3 effortlessly maintains momentum on demanding backroads. It's a hot hatch that stays remarkably cool under pressure.
The Mazda's steering is not as communicative as the Ford's and the ride not as firm, but there's a nimbleness to the way the SP22 tackles tight corners that makes the ST feel a bit fussy at times. There's no doubt that the Ford feels like the more exciting and involving machine, but there's also no denying that the Mazda is just as fast and far less tiring to drive over distances.
The cabins of these cars reflect their relative ages. The Focus ST was launched back in 2012 (there's a facelift model coming in 2015), while the Mazda3 was fresh out of the box this year. There's still a great sense of occasion in the Ford, with bright trim, special badging on the steering wheel and those chunky Recaro chairs - with bright blue inserts to match the exterior. But the fit and finish is simply not on the same level as the Mazda and nor is the level of standard equipment.
Back at launch time, Ford's Sync voice control and infotainment system was state-of-the art. Now, compared with the Mazda MZD Connect setup, with its lavishly large touch-screen and broad range of connectivity options (you can even have Facebook and Twitter feeds), it looks a little creaky - at least until the Focus gets an updated generation of Sync, which should happen next year.
The Mazda betters the Ford with a head-up display, blind-spot monitoring, lane-departure warning, cross-traffic alert and automatic high-beam control for the lights. Nor can the ST match the SP22 Limited's adaptive cruise control (it has a standard speed-regulation system) or autonomous city braking - although strangely, the Focus Titanium has both of those features, as well as automated parking.
