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2019 Mazda CX-9 improves its IIHS rating to Top Safety Pick +

The 2019 Mazda CX-9 three-row crossover has managed to improve its overall safety rating from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety from an already respectable Top Safety Pick to the higher Top Safety Pick +. The area it needed to improve was in the headlight department, and now the crossover features a set of headlights that gets the highest "Good" rating, a prerequisite for the Top Safety Pick + award. The headlight improvement does have caveats. The top-rated headlights are only available on Signature and Grand Touring trims built after June 2019. Headlights on other trims and older models range from "Poor" to "Acceptable." All versions of the CX-9 have top scores in crash tests, though. Mazda's optional forward collision prevention system also earns full marks, stopping the crossover before hitting a car at speeds up to 25 mph. Child seat LATCH anchor access is rated as "Acceptable." Four other similarly sized and priced crossovers earn the Top Safety Pick + designation: the Hyundai Palisade, Hyundai Santa Fe, Subaru Ascent and Kia Telluride. And of those, only the Pallisade, Ascent and Telluride offer three rows of seating.

Petrolicious lets a 1971 Mazda RX-2 howl

Rotary engines scream to the heavens in the best way possible. To hear a wonderful example of the Wankel's battle cry, turn up your speakers and watch Petrolicious highlight an immaculately clean 1971 Mazda RX-2 in Australia. Owner Jason Humble took three years to build his RX-2 from a bare shell, and he started competing with it in vintage racing in 2005. The little coupe's class pits it on track against Mustangs and Camaros, but Humble claims that he's regularly near the top of the pack thanks to the Mazda's communicative chassis. We don't get to see the RX-2 mixing things up on track in the Petrolicious video, but Humble does treat us to a drive through the Australian countryside. He's happy to let the coupe's rotary rev, and the little engine is capable of making a wonderful noise. It's great to see Petrolicious continue to give the spotlight to these sometimes overlooked classic Japanese sports cars.

2019 Mazda3 AWD First Drive Review | Unconventionally incredible

Here's some quick consumer advice: If you were considering buying one of those "premium" AWD compact sedans like the Audi A3 Quattro or the Mercedes CLA250 4Matic, don't you dare, because the 2019 Mazda3 AWD is a far better car than either. And you can have one for under $25,000. Not only does the little Mazda have an interior far nicer than any of its actual competitors, it also drives better than almost all of them, and it's prettier than any car at this segment has a right to be. (I'm talking about the sedan here, not the Mazda3 Hunchback Hatchback.) In short, if you need all-wheel drive but hate the idea of a wasteful, copycat SUV, or if you want a compact sedan and don't want your friends to think you're in a rental car, buy a new Mazda3. Got it? Good. That was easy. But for those of you who want to know how the Mazda3 AWD became so special, I need to give you some background information. Specifically, I need to tell you about my friend John, because we all have a friend like John, and Mazda is like John. John is a genius. Like, a certified, bona-fide human supercomputer. He understands more about most subjects than experts on those subjects. And he walks straight into a wall three times a day. Mazda and John have a lot in common. You might look at some of the things they do and think they're not paying attention. But if you take the time to dig deeper, you learn that there's amazing stuff going on beneath the surface. For example, you might wonder why the Mazda3 has two fuel gauges, one analog and the other a digital facsimile of that analog gauge, four inches apart. Or you may scratch your head that Mazda finally installed Apple CarPlay and Android Auto functionality, only to get rid of the touchscreen those systems are designed to use. You might wonder why a powertrain designed from stem to stern in the name of efficiency — we're talking cylinder-deactivation on a four-cylinder! — can't match the fuel economy of most of its more traditionally engineered competitors. And then you walk towards this car and momentarily forget all of this. The Mazda3 sedan oozes sex appeal. Open the door, get in, and you'll plunk yourself into a seat that's positioned like it's in a sports car: your hips are low, the steering wheel is squarely in front of you, and your legs aren't bunched against a firewall that's a foot too close.