The way I see it, the best examples of a car company's engineering can be found in its baseline models, the bottom of the bottom. Unfettered by extra performance features and luxury gewgaws, a base econobox must provide a compromise, offering a minimum of "essential" amenities and capabilities at a value added price. Mazda's handsomely restyled Protege, while still overshadowed by their star-player Miata, is easily the best value on their dealer lots right now.

The story of our 99 DX started with a Corolla. Well, the thought of one, anyway. My stepmother's aging 81 Maxima finally succombed to a host of rust and electrical problems, so we bade it farewell and went looking for a new runabout. I use the word "runabout" because it accurately describes her vehicle's mission. She makes frequent short-haul trips between church, work, social activities, and shopping in a flat urban area. Her car needed to be safe, reliable, efficient, and most importantly new. The first word that popped into our heads was, well, "Corolla", so we popped on down to the Toyota dealer to check one out.

Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), our local Toyota dealer's service was positively abysmal. After requesting a test drive in the Corolla we'd researched, we were made to wait a half hour before the manager came out and literally brushed us off. He said he had enough customers for the day, and we were free to go elsewhere. Noses high in the air, we did just that, and walked across the lot to the adjacent Mazda dealership. "Whaddaya have that competes with a Corolla?" we said.

Mazda's service was the exact opposite of Toyota's. There weren't a whole lot of folks on the lot, and dealers were attentive, prompt, and direct. They really wanted to sell their wares, a trick Toyota may want to try someday. We putted around in several different flavors of Protege: automatic, manual, DX, LX, etc. After spending the afternoon whittling down the monthly payments, we drove home with a Protege DX Automatic, burgundy outside and khaki inside. Here's the rundown.

EXTERIOR: 9/10

I'm a big fan of conservatively handsome sedans. The wedgy profile of the Protege calls to mind Mercedes' 300E (!!) from the late 80s, the W124 body. Mazda decided to drop the smooshed jellybean shape of its predecessor and gave it some sharp creases on the door panels and around the wheel-wells. The front fascia will remind you somewhat of a Honda Civic, but it wears the same aggressively cute grin that can be found on all current Mazdas. The rear aspect is also neatly tucked in by an angled pair of jewel-colored taillamps. There's just enough tasteful brightwork here to make the Protege look much more expensive than it is.

Exterior fit and finish approaches that of Honda and Toyota, but barely misses. Doors close with a crisp "clunk"; no bank vault illusions to be found here. "Break away" mirrors do just that, but it's a little too easy to accidentally brush past the passenger side mirror and knock it out of alignment.

INTERIOR: 8/10

Here lies the Protege's biggest surprise: all 6'1", 230 lbs of ME fit wonderfully inside it, front seat or back. I rented a Corolla a few months ago, and while it was a fun drive, it left me with constant backaches. Not the Protege. The base driver's seat is firm and supportive without being uncomfortable, and all seating & some door surfaces are covered with a soft velour that has proven durable. A lot of folks may not dig this "mouse fur" material, but I do. Kudos to Mazda for bringing that soft velour up to the door sills, where I usually brace my elbow while driving.

Instrumentation is well-lit and easily legible, if not a little spartan (no tach). Surrounding this is a well thought out dashboard with a high-mounted center console for easy access to the CD tuner and HVAC knobs. That standard issue CD player, by the way, is a nice touch in a base model car. While it's no audiophile dream, it's hooked up to four respectable woofers which are crisp, accurate and loud. The CD tuner is a little hard to manipulate, with small buttons and little tactile feedback. That's ok. Mazda made up for it by adding a nifty CD storage bin in the center stack. Press the door and it lazily floats open. Classy.

Interior fit and finish, again, approaches the other Japanese makes but you can tell the Cheap Fairy made a visit to the factory. Interior hard plastics feel chintzy and hollow, though they're tight and well assembled. Mazda makes up for this by adding an interesting golf-ball dimple texture to those surfaces, and the look works. The plastic door handles are the worst, however. I have a feeling they'd come off in my hand if I were making a hasty exit. Go for the chrome handles if you can.

DRIVETRAIN / POWERPLANT: 8/10

Why am I giving such high marks to the DX's 1.6L 105hp four-banger? Because it's appropriate for its runabout task. It's no thrill-ride, especially when paired to our automatic tranny, but it's spirited enough to press you into your seat on the way to Costco. We've gotten around 25-30mpg with this layout, and efficiency increases somewhat after that 15,000 mile break-in. It gets a little anemic at passing speed on the highway, and that's about all the excitement you'll wring out of the little 1.6. I'm sure the manual gearbox would be more entertaining, but insist on a tachometer if you get one.

In the past 30,000 miles, we've had zero problems with this engine/tranny combo. Mazda's reliability ratings seem to vary across the product spectrum, but it looks like they have a winner with the Protege. It has the typical purposeful whine that almost all import four-bangers have, and while it does intrude into the cabin during high revs, it's not a bad sound.

If you want a more spirited ride, or you do frequent battle on the freeway, however, you may want to look into Mazda's uprated 2.0L engine in the LX and ES, which makes around 130hp.

RIDE / HANDLING / FEEL: 7/10

First of all, let me make something abundantly clear: It's not a sports car, Chester. Sure, it says 140 on the speedo, but the base DX isn't interested in playing with your neighbor's Civic Si.

Now that we've established that, we can look at the Protege for what it is. It actually rides like a larger car, say, a Toyota Camry. It's a city car, a runabout. The suspension is soft and forgiving without being too wallowy, the steering is accurate if not precise, and gives good feedback. Once you grab the chunky steering wheel, it's simply point and shoot. It carves up the twisties pretty nicely too, albeit slowly. On parkways and freeways, the car feels especially buttoned down around 45-55 mph, then gets a little squirrelly at 60, but it seems to button down again at higher speeds. If you leave your foot on that pedal you may not realize when you've reached 90. Cruise control is a very good idea.

Speaking of the pedals, they're only major flaw I see with the Protege. The gas pedal is feather-light and gives little resistance or feedback, but the real crime here is that the brake pedal feels exactly the same. If you're not careful, a good flick of the foot can stop the car very abruptly, and if your car isn't equipped with ABS (ours isn't) you can really scare the bejeezus out of your passengers. That lack of feedback also makes it difficult to modulate the brake upon entering a curve, making the confidence factor a little low until you've figured out how to treat the brake pedal like an eggshell.

On the quality side, the car has developed only one intermittent squeak somewhere in the passenger side rear wheel well, but it seems to have spontaneously disappeared a few months ago. Other than that, after two years it's still a very tight vehicle and still feels like one solid piece of Protege.

SO...

Who is this car for? I mean this particular car, the 99 DX. Mazda has a new, facelifted Protege sitting on dealer lots, which is helping to drive down the pricetag of the 99 / 00 model Proteges coming off of lease or still sitting on the lot. The bad news is, it doesn't seem to hold its value tremendously well. The good news is, that puts it around the $11k range, or thereabouts, which makes it an extraordinary buy for a high school or college student (or anybody...my stepmother is 53) looking for a decent, reliable commuter car. It's also an easy car to drive and park, and looks good in the parking space. I can't emphasize enough how handsome this car is, just sitting still. If you're looking at new Korean imports, be sure to check your local Mazda lot first.

And yes, I hear my fellow guys whining, it's a chick car, but I've seen local import tuners do some amazing things to the Protege, making it downright sexy and fast as all-get-out. If you have the extra dough, it looks particularly nice lowered a tad, with a set of modest 17" rims.

But that's for a different kind of running about, now, isn't it? :)


Amount Paid (US$): 17400
Condition: New
Model Year: 1999
Model and Options: Mazda Protege DX Automatic