Depends who’s in the back seat with you.
I’m well over that kind of fun, I’m afraid. I’m one of those people, and there are a lot of us although I’m probably the only one in this thread, who thinks of cars as transportation boxes, a necessary evil if I am to live far enough away from people that I can have sanity. I have only a handful of criteria for car selection: how much stuff I can get into it and how easy it is to load/unload, turning radius, gas mileage, reliability. It should also go, stop, and turn without drawing attention to those actions. That’s about it. I realize that those criteria are mainly irrelevant to lovers of cars, and feel dubious about sharing them at all.
I now want a Prius.
Seriously, I actually contacted the local Toyota dealer to ask about a Prius Prime (full electric for up to 25 miles, ICE for longer drives; that would fit my use perfectly, as I seldom leave the house, mainly only for short trips to the grocery store, and I very rarely leave town).
I’ve had 5 Mazdas, between me and my spouse. There is incredible value there if you like a car that’s fun to drive. The Zoom Zoom is a real design philosophy.
I have a 2021 non-turbo manual transmission Mazda3 Premium (which is a hatchback, but it doesn’t really feel any different to me than a sedan). I literally love my car. I look forward to driving it. The heads up display is incredibly useful. And if you get the navigation option, it will put the upcoming direction in the heads up. The other safety features are also great.
We also have a Mazda CX-9, which I’m not recommending, but just want to point out that Mazda made it as fun as possible to drive a behemoth 3-row AWD automatic SUV.
So I say, go poke around the Mazda dealer’s lot and drive what interests you.
We have a 2005 Mazdaspeed Miata. We are the original owners, and it is completely unmodified.
One of the best all-around playcars I’ve ever driven.
The Prius is a great car; I just want more feel from a car. Seriously, I think the world would be safer and cleaner if there were more drivers/owners like you and Ulfreida, and fewer drivers like me.
The Prime you’re considering is almost exactly my wife’s previous car, a 2014 Prius plug-in. Back in ‘14, it could only go 12 miles on the battery, but since she rode the bus to work and most of her errands were close, she didn’t need the engine often. Her gas mileage was usually 100-120 mpg. She loved the car and would still have it if she hadn’t decided to go full electric.
Oh, how I lusted for that car. Before her Prius, Wife had a red 2005 Miata. It was a riot to drive. All it needed was the 20 extra ponies that the Mazdaspeed version has. I couldn’t buy one, because our 2nd car had to have a back seat. She sold it to a woman whose husband had a Mazdaspeed, so they have a nice set of red Miatas.
We went to Canada for vacation this year, and I needed to rent a van for a week. The rep said I could rent a van with a standard engine, or a Toyota Sienna with a hybrid engine. She said the main difference is that I’ll spend roughly half as much money on fuel if I rent the Sienna. I had never driven a hybrid or electric car, and wanted the chance to do so. So I rented the Sienna. Wow, fantastic vehicle! Was very impressed. It had lots of power, and the fuel economy was excellent. I know I’m a bit late to the game, but I am really sold on hybrid technology.
We have a 2002 Miata (“NB”). Yea, it’s a blast to drive. But not good for long trips. It’s very loud on the highway due to wind noise and high RPM.
I was talking to a friend last night who is a Tesla fan boy. He says that until about this year, Tesla was the only option viable for long road trips, but that’s not true anymore. So check and see if there might be more charging stations in your range than you realize. He also says that being forced to stop for half an hour every do often, in a nice place with nice food options and often something to do, makes long road trips much less grueling than when he stopped at grimy gas stations, as well.
We had a plug in hybrid for a few years, and the two things i miss about it are never worrying about getting gas (we did buy gas, but if i could get it home, i knew i could get it to the gas station, and in practice, it was just something i stopped monitoring and worrying about. I hadn’t realized how much i have to think about it with an ice until i returned to driving an ice, and it drove me nuts.) and how sporty it felt to drive. There’s just an instant connection between hitting the gas and accelerating.
If ev might be viable for you, test drive a couple. Some are tuned to feel like an ice, but must are really fun to drive.
The Mazda3 is also one of the few cars still offered with a manual transmission in the US, which is one of my criteria for “fun to drive”, although I realize the OP may not feel the same way. Unfortunately I don’t think you can get the manual transmission with the turbo engine.
I just got back from a trip back east for my sister’s wedding, which necessitated renting a car, and for some weird reason the cheapest option was a midsized SUV. When I picked it up the guy at the counter asked if I preferred a Toyota or a Mazda, and I was like “definitely Mazda”. So I just spend the last 5 days driving around in a CX-5. And while it’s no sports car by any means, it wasn’t bad for an SUV.
If I were in the market for a new car, if I were to stick with internal combustion my first choice would probably be a Mazda3 manual. But if I were to go electric, by current favorite is the Polestar 2, from Volvo’s new EV brand.
I appreciate all of the input!
An update: it is an absolutely infuriating time to buy a car. It’s like the test drive is a thing of the past. Even if a dealership has cars listed in their online inventory as “in stock”, they’re probably already sold and you can’t test drive them.
I really want to compare the BMW 2-series and 4-series. The large dealership that I went to had a single 2021 4-series (and not the M440i model I’m actually interested in) to be driven. Near as I can tell, there isn’t a 2-series available for a test drive within 200 miles of me.
It seems to be like that across the board.
Long term CT4 Blackwing review
Just putting it out there since I didn’t get any traction previously…
Some of the desirable cars out there are currently being sold for huge markups. The new Nissan Z looks like a spectacular car, but their ~50k price is currently being marked up more than double, to over $100,000. Crazy.
And the cars that aren’t marked up are either undesirable or out of stock. It’s a bad time to buy a new car. I’d wait a few months. We are likely heading into a recession and demand will fall, and deals may be available again.
Also, if you have to finance, current financing rates are terrible. 6% interest vs 0% interest on a five year, $50,000 car loan is about $8,000 difference. If you’re crazy enough to get an 8 year loan, you’ll pay $13,000 more at 6%.
Where you getting this? I just checked dealer inventory near me, and there’s four Z Proto Spec models in stock in the next week within 25 miles of me (Santa Cruz, CA) all at $54,915, and a Performance model <50 miles away for $51,915. Show me someone paying $100k for that.
Hmm… I just watched a car review video where they were complaining about markups and mentioned that. They also said that the new Hummer EV had been marked up double.
Here’s a Road and Track article with an even worse example:
There are lots of articles about crazy markups if you Google it. The new Hummer EV has been marked up as much ad $100k.
Dealer inventory within 50 miles of my house (there’s actually 5 available, I just clipped the first two)
nm plus words for discourse
Those are MSRP prices. Call one and ask how much to buy the Proto Z if you come in now with cash.
You call. Back up the point you were trying to make about huge markups on Z cars without a cite. San Leandro Nissan, +1 (510) 877-3346