More Accolades for Mazda3

By Bill McLauchlan

A true sign that it’s auto show season is the shower of “best new” or “car of the year” awards presented with all the pomp and circumstance that accompanies them.

In case you’ve forgotten, or lost track amid the tide of titles inundating us in recent days, it kicked off early last December with a dozen category winners revealed by the Automobile Journalists Association of Canada (AJAC). Those nominees now go on to contest overall car-of-the-year honours at the upcoming Toronto AutoShow next month.

The pace picked up earlier this week in Detroit where Chevrolet’s Corvette Stingray and Silverado collected COTY awards for car and truck respectively.

Today, we learned the all-new Mazda3 was named winner of the fifth annual ‘Best of the Best’ award by The Canadian Automotive Jury (CAJ). In gaining this recognition, it beat out the aforementioned Stingray and Jaguar’s sporty new F-Type.

This award – a distinctive Inuit soapstone carving of a polar bear – joins a growing number of trophies picked up by the 2104 Mazda3 in its short on-sale span (since last October). AJAC named it Best New Small Car Under $21,000 and saluted the Mazda3 Sport as Best New Small Car Over $21,000. Now the CAJ award adds further polish to the completely redesigned compact car’s rapidly growing reputation as a game changer in its class.

“With each previous generation the Mazda3 has set a new standard for the compact segment,” said jury member Graeme Fletcher at the Montreal auto show. “The latest Mazda3 does it yet again. Its combination of styling, practicality and a full suite of Mazda’s SKYACTIV technologies make it a dynamic, fun-to-drive car that is equally fuel efficient and affordable. The combination saw (it) earn an easy victory.”

Double Win for Infiniti
Not content to let CAJ grab all the glory in awarding excellence, AJAC chose the Montreal auto extravaganza to name Nissan’s luxury Infiniti division as the recipient of a pair of technology trophies for Best New Innovation Technology and Best New safety Technology.

Infiniti won the former for its Direct Adaptive Steering technology and the latter for its Predictive Forward Collision Warning system.

In presenting the wards, AJAC noted the technology awards were presented in two separate categories for the first time in 2014. There’s a reason for that. In the past, the jury of 12 technology specialists often found it difficult to choose between innovative technology that might improve comfort, or performance, or fuel economy, and another that might save lives.

The solution was to establish separate categories for safety and innovation; thereby ensuring that the best of both genres have a chance to be recognized for their respective merits.

As with AJAC’s Canadian Car of the Year awards, the jurors voted again by secret ballot and outcome supervised and compiled by the accounting firm KPMG.