DriveShop provided me with use of the 2016 Mazda MAZDA3. All opinions are mine.
Once upon a time in one wintry December, I had car troubles.
These problems became bad enough that it looked like we were going to have to cancel our trip over the river and through the woods to grandmother’s house my parents’ house. Things were looking considerably UN-MERRY.
I was contemplating taking the bus, but my friends at DriveShop came through with a fabulous 2016 Mazda MAZDA3.
As we traveled through the woods and over a couple of rivers to get to our family gathering, Wolfgang and I had a merry old time making a list of reasons why we would prefer traveling in this zippy little car to Santa’s Sleigh.
Aside from the obvious reasons (sleighs are slow and probably not great when it’s not snowing, reindeer are smelly and possibly against the law when used as transportation devices) and the silly ones (would the reindeer even listen to us? What if we didn’t like the color scheme?), here are 5 reasons why the MAZDA3 is better than Santa’s sleigh!
- Better interior. I bet that Santa’s sleigh has some wear and tear on those seats…and I bet you they’re not even heated. When you’re riding in a one-horse open sleigh (or with 8 tiny reindeer), it has GOT to be chilly.The MAZDA3’s interior is not only nice to look at, but has push button start (my personal favorite feature on any car), Bluetooth (including audio) with a 6 speaker surround sound stereo with the USB integration and MAZDA Connect (which means you can play Pandora from the fancy touch screen in the car, plus it will read your texts to you if you’d like).The higher-end trim packages also offer heated seats, leather and heated SIDE MIRRORS.
- Gas mileage. 27 MPG in the city and 38 highway means that you don’t have to stop to refuel your reindeer half as much on your way to deliver the Giving Tree presents for your local moms group (like I did).Also, when you’re not spending oodles of money on gasoline, you have more dollars to get more presents for your loved ones! (Or more Bailey’s for your late-night toddies.)
- Trunk space. You don’t need to carry a magical sack with toys for all the good little girls and boys, but it helps when your trunk is a little on the roomy side. We dug the sedan model, as it’s a nice bit of trunk on a smaller footprint of a car.With the last-minute shopping we had to do before driving to Seattle for Christmas, we managed to fit all of the purchases from 2 runs for groceries, two very-last-second runs to Best Buy, one really ill-advised trip to Costco, one to Walgreens…..and a partridge in a pear tree.Kidding on that last one. But with 47 cubic feet of space with the back seat laid down, we had no issues fitting Wolfgang’s luggage, my luggage, a chair I painted for someone and all of the groceries and presents we would need.
- Backup Camera comes standard. Can you imagine trying to maneuver Santa’s overloaded sleigh into a parallel parking spot? Or trying to deliver to some ranch house in the middle of Wyoming in the dark?On the 2016 MAZDA3, you get the backup camera standard. Boom. No more backing into someone’s car while you’re trying to improve your parallel parking skills.(Also comes in handy when you leave the presents behind the car and shut the trunk and get in the car to leave. Keeps you from running over them….not that I’ve done that. But I totally have.)
- Price point. I can’t imagine that keeping those reindeer fed and healthy is cheap. Or the costs of maintaining a centuries-old method of transportation….all magical methods aside.Prices for the MAZDA3 would be way cheaper than feeding reindeer for a year, I would wager. Or paying all those elves to take care of the reindeer. Or grooming them.
So all in all, 10/10 would pick the MAZDA3 over Santa’s Sleigh if I had to choose.
Hope that won’t put me on the naughty list…..