Zoom Zoom!

I went on the Great Auto Test Drive 2005 last night and I discovered some surprising things.

One, all the research in the world cannot take the place of getting behind the wheel and stomping on the gas.

Two, I’m very much a tactile, emotional car buyer. I want to be excited about my car.

When I was going into this whole car buying process, I was focused on two things: price and gas economy.

I discovered that those two items will not trump the X-factor: feel.

I drove the Toyota Matrix XR first. From the outside, it’s a cute car. Driving it was an entirely different situation. It handled and felt like a minivan. I was sitting too damn high on the seat (and it was as low as it could go) and it did not accelerate or handle anywhere near what I wanted. All in all, quite a disappointment. The salesman at the Toyota dealership wasn’t that helpful either. But helpful or not, the car was a dud in my opinion.

Next was the Mazda3 S Touring model.

All I can give you is two words: HOLY SHIT.

I’ll give you six more for giggles: WHAT A FUN CAR TO DRIVE!!!

The salesman was very friendly, helpful and was very good about showing me the features and answering my questions. He even showed me everything under the hood – that totally scored bonus points with me. I was asking him about the DOHC and other nerdy automotive stuff that I know about. But it was nice to be taken seriously as a car buyer and not patronized just because I’m a woman. Hell, I used to sell Ford heavy duty pickup trucks to ranchers and farmers – so I do know about limited slip differentials and torque.

And it is the coolest color EVER: Copper Red Mica. Frickin’ frackin’ fabulous!

The test drive was the killer though – totally sold me on it. It handles beautifully, has the get-up-and-go that I wanted and it also has one of the coolest features I’ve seen: the 5-speed electronically controlled Sport AT automatic transmission. If you want it in automatic, you can – but if you want it in manual, you just flip the shifter over to the left and you toggle back to shift up and forward to shift down. With no clutch or letting up on the gas! That threw me the first couple of times shifting, since I’m so used to the clutch/gas/shifting thing of a normal manual transmission – but I soon learned and was giggling like a maniac.

The feeling I had in the Mazda3 was the feeling I was looking for in a car. Since this is going to be a car that I will have for a very long time, I wanted it to be something exciting, something that I would love 5 years from now. I’m pretty damn sure I’m going to love this 10 years from now!

The gas mileage is a bit less than the Matrix, but the price is cheaper, so I’m 1 for 2 on the pre-requisites. The Mazda3 kicked the Matrix’s ass on that X-factor, though.

I pick it up on Thursday. Pictures forthcoming.

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Is it Thursday yet?