SOTW: Mazda MX-3 V6
Shed decides that small is beautiful for this tiny V6 gem
But just occasionally small can be good, and this Mazda MX-3 is a case in point. Its cylinders might displace only 1.8 litres, but there are six of them, making this one of the smallest V6s ever to grace a production car engine bay.
It's reputed to be a bit of a peach, too, and its 131bhp and 116lb ft of torque is enough to shove it to 62mph in 8.5secs and on to a top speed of 130mph - respectable figures for a diminutive 90s Japanese coupe.
But that baby V6 is the star of the show - especially since it gets a variable intake manifold and a redline that almost touches 8000rpm. And it's nice to beable to say "let's take the V6", isn't it?
PH's own Rusty-C (the bloke who looks after the PH classifieds) spotted this 80,000-mile potential gem lurking on the internet. If the vendor's not telling porkies (and we have no reason to suppose they would be), it's been pampered, has oodles of paperwork, a long MOT, plenty of tax and a price tag of £795 or thereabouts.
Advert is reproduced below:
Mazda MX3 Coupe V6 For Sale (1991)
£795 Or near offer
Gunmetal metallic rare 1.8-litre V6 coupe. The bodywork is excellent with only a few chips as you would expect for a vehicle that is almost 20 years old. The lacquer on the spoiler has peeled off but the paint has polished up very well and it really does not detract from the overall appearance. Inside the seats and carpets are good apart from some wear on the drivers seat cushion; again this is only slight. Everything works properly with only the passeneger door remote lock mechanism needing locking manually. It opens remotely as it should.
The beauty of this car is in the driving. The V6 engine is an absolute joy and is so smooth and the sound it makes puts many modern 6 cylinder motors in the shade. The mileage of 88000 is genuine with a very complete Mazda service history up to 52000 and then a local garage of good repute to date. I have in fact known the previous owner back to 2001.
The car was serviced last month,the MOT runs to March 2011, tax runs to September and road tax is only £190 and my insurance is £105 on a Classic Car policy.
te but great all at the same time!For a small warm hatch, though, I thought the MX3 made a lot of sense at the time
Anyway was typically japanese aweful cloth interior but they did go some with leather which helped and i always had a soft spot for the exterior styling. I think its aged well a car styled ahead of its time i think.
Interesting car and now you can insure on a classic policy probably a cheap reliable pocket rocket! Good one SOTW
The worst thing is what happens when the dizzy goes. The engine will randomly cut out, but only if the engine is started when hot, and when it dies you lose the power assistance to the steering which is unutterably heavy without it. Effectively the steering locks solid when the engine cuts. Not nice when you're entering a tight motorway slip road. I replaced mine with a brand new dizzy from Mazda when it started, and then a few months later it failed again. I sold the car after that.
The car was quite good fun but it ate front tyres due to its weight and the revviness of the engine. Its quite pretty and has a vaaast boot. You can comfortably seat four adults, but for £795 I'd try to find something else. I did pay a lot more for my one and mine had done 115k miles, but I was young and stupid and seduced by the swoopy coupe shape. Oh yeah and rear visibilty is poor due to the spoiler and the shape of the boot lid, the seats barely adjust and the doors are very very long making parking awkward.
It was also designed for the american market and is geared to be most efficient at 55mph. This means that the motorway MPG was shocking, and it was quite harsh at 70mph or more.
Still, its nice to see a bit of nostalgia for me in SOTW!
Its the details and the quality of the car that doesn't come across in the reviews or in pictures like this.
It was built to a very high standard indeed for its class of veichle, which pushed the price up, I think at one point they sold for the same price as a S14 200sx, as a result they were never as popular as they deserved to be.
The engine bay is well designed and protected, with all major functions being on top of the engine making access easy. All the connectors are well designed and watertight. The intake is cast alloy and durable, all moving parts are made from metal ( no plastic tensioners or waterpumps ! ) and the radiator is alloy and effective. Rust proofing is effective ( unlike the Puma or Mx5 )
The engine itsself is a gem, you can balance a pound coin on the engine cover at tickover. The torque from the engine is incredible compared to a coarse 4 cylinder, It pulls from 750rpm (!) as a result you can pull away in third gear without excessive clutch slip, and once on the move ( +20mph ) 5th gear is all you ever need.....even up some very steep hills. It comes on song at 4000rpm with solenoids opening to reduce the induction length. It will rev to 7250 rpm, but unlike a 4 cylinder it is smooth and refined, and doing so puts no stress on the engine. I once completed a high speed run on a german autobahn with the engine running at over 6000rpm for over two hours, and it did not overheat or exhibit any signs of distress. This means that although power is relatively low, you can exploit that power without fear. Before the Mx3 I owned a Rover Tomcat Turbo.....it had 200bhp, but when it tried driving it to the redline all the time it broke very quickly. I figured it was better to have 136 bhp of power I could use than 200bhp of power I was afraid to use. The refinement at speed is also impressive, little wind noise due to shape, and engine is silent even at 5000rpm +
I ran my car to 130,000 miles, and it was as quiet and smooth running the day I sold it as when I got it.
I bought it as a car for the then wife, but when I discovered how much fun it was to hustle down a lane she didn't get a look in. The handling is sublime, great to chuck about and very safe.
Its behaviour when cornering also deserves a mention, simply because it is the only FWD car I have driven that behaves like a RWD car in a corner *within the limits of traction*
Please bear in mind that I owned ( and sold ) an Mx5, and Mr2 and an MGF during the same period, so I have very good reference points..........
Simply put, when you accelerate in a corner, the rear suspension loads up, and instead of getting understeer, the rear wheels toe out and the rear helps you round the corner, tightening your line. You dont get the full fat RWD drift, as if the front break traction then you will get understeer again, but it genuinely feels like a RWD car...in fact more so than for example an MGF which understeers under power untill traction breaks. You can induce lift oversteer, but unlike the Peugout 205 GTI I owned you have to quite brutal and unsettle the car and left foot brake.
The grip when conering is very impressive, .9 G which is greater than a Lotus Elise.
The steering is great, well weighted, full of feedback and quick, 2.5 turns lock to lock.
The rear Hatch is huge ( an unlike the Puma it doesnt drop rain water into the boot ) , and the rear seats fold down. You can get some sizeable objects in there......Golf clubs, baby pushchairs, a fridge etc.
Its competitors were the Puma and the Tigra, and it beats them on every objective measure, its quicker, better handling, better designed boot, better drivers car.
I personally don't think for 750 pounds you can find a more reliable, fun to drive car with a decent measure of practicality.
The bad points to look for when buying are :
Interior - a little rattly and brittle, and black plastic.
Ride is quite stiff, great for a sportscar.
The only engine problem to note is the air intake tube can become brittle and break, leading to poor idle as air bypasses it.
Economy - I used to average about 30mpg, 20mpg when pressing on - so not wallet raping, but to be fair you can find 1.8litre, 8 second 0-60 cars that return much better values.
Rear calipers also have a habit of sticking and occassionaly needed attention.
Sensitive to Cheap tyres/mismatched tyres. - it runs 205/55/15's and the best were Toyo T1Rs or Goodyear Eagle F1's. If they are mismatched front to rear ( as mine was when I bought it, with ok tyres on the rear and ditchfinders on the front ) it ruins the rear suspension toe effects and can induce understeer.
The distributor is vulnerable as it sits next to a hot engine, there is a remote ignition mod that fixes this for under 50 pounds. I never got round to doing it, and mine never broke.
You can get a 3 year guaranteed part for 175 pounds.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/MAZDA-MX3-MX6-V6-DISTRIBUTOR...
And here is the External ignitor mod to fix this issue completely:
http://www.mx-3.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=15&...
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