The four-door sedan has a sweet rounded shape forward of the A-pillar. Mazda's trademark wedge grille has body-color horizontal bars on the 3s, plain black mesh on the 3i. The standard headlamps on the sedan have a smooth and sexy shape, swept back like cat's eyes and sparkling with three beams inside. The whole front bumper, including the air dam at the bottom with foglights in the corners, is impressively integrated. There's a small seam on each fender between the headlights and the wheel opening, and between the headlights themselves there's only the hood opening. Everything south of that is one smooth and effective piece.

The rear of the sedan is another smooth, cohesive design with an integrated bumper, and again only small seams at the edges. The deck is short and high and nicely softened at the top. Taillights have red lenses on 3i, clear on 3s. At all four corners, the wheelwells fit tightly around the tires; there used to be a rule at Mazda that there had to be enough of a wheelwell gap to install tire chains without removing the tire, which the stylists hated and finally defeated for the Mazda 3.

The five-door hatchback is no wider, but it appears wide-shouldered because of its aggressive nose. The fenders are dropped and sculpted to rise to the hood and flow into the front doors. The boxy top half makes the whole car look wide. There's less rake from the tops of the doors to the roof (affording more shoulder room), but the rear of the roof is gently rounded to the liftgate window, to soften the profile. There's a tidy spoiler above the rear window.

The rear fenders of the hatchback are aggressively defined over the wheels. There's a big notch in the rear bumper, under the liftgate, to clear the back of your hand when you grab the latch. We thought the design was a bit exaggerated until we used it the first time and appreciated its excellent function.

It's especially nice that there's no chrome trim. Black around the windows, body colored everywhere else.

Mazda 3 is a global car, sharing technology and components with the Volvo S40 and the European-market Ford Focus that isn't sold in the U.S. It's like a talent co-op. People say component sharing makes cars all the same but it's not so. Mazda developed the engines and transmissions, Volvo did the chassis and safety, and Ford of Europe did the basic suspension design. The fine-tuning of the suspension was in Mazda's hands, worked out at its Hiroshima test track. Each manufacturer did what it does best, and the result is the best of three worlds.

A lot of work went into the rigid unit-body chassis. In a head-on collision the front of the chassis is designed to redirect energy to the outside rails, and not down the center toward the front seats. The steering column is crushable and the pedals are designed to retract away from the driver's feet.