We had teaser pictures for the sedan - and now we have the hatch. And the pictures are even less revealing. Basically, other than the rear hatchback, it is identical to the sedan, which is interesting, because the previous generation hatch and sedan were similar looking, but not at all the same. I suppose it makes better business sense for Mazda this way - I guess it's not really that much of a big deal. The bumper sticks out heaps, like the sedan, but this could just be a product of the angles these pictures were taken on - I now have new, better pictures of the Mazda3 sedan which indicate that it's a better proportioned car than I had originally anticipated.
I now also know that the red hatch I showed you in the previous Mazda3 story was an absolute crock - it looks nothing like the real thing.

I maintain that the bonnet and grille still look like a Peugeot 308 (sadly this face, which has been previewed on some of Mazda's concepts, will become the face of all in the Mazda family), but I'm sure that the next generation Mazda3 will be far more stylish than it's predecessor, which was hardly dorky. I have also now have pictures of the interior, seen here in what I assume is SP25 guise (the 2.3 litre engine will be upgraded to a 2.5 like the Mazda6) and the general layout looks just like the Mazda6 really. Sadly, no RX-8 style wheel this time. But this car does seem to have more steering wheel buttons than I have ever seen in my life, which begs the question: what are they all for? And more importantly, aren't we all going to be spending heaps of time looking for which button to press (and averting our eyes from the road)? I thought steering wheel controls where meant to remove distraction. Can't see what I'm talking about? Click on the interior picture for the larger image.

NEWS: Mazda3 2010 update