At low revs, you'll wish you were driving a turbocharged petrol or diesel because they're much more flexible and require fewer gear changes. At least the manual gearbox is great to use, with a lovely, precise shift. The Mazda 3 is relatively lethargic until you get to 3000rpm and the automatic gearbox that’s available adds to the frustration with its reluctance to kick down. Once the revs are past 3000rpm it pulls fairly healthily and 0-62mph is dealt with in 8.1sec. There are much quicker cars in the class than that, though. It's noisy, too, but the average fuel economy of around 55mpg is good.