km : Automotive News

"Look Pa, I'm just like you." Ford's once-major stake in Mazda may have fizzled down to nothing with the economic turbulence of the past year, but the hits the two made together are still carrying on today. One of those co-developments, like the Mazda3/Euro Focus/Volvo S40 platform, was the subcompact design that underpins the Mazda2 and the Ford Fiesta. While Ford has been hard at work spreading the gospel of its cute little hatchback here in the US over the past year, Mazda decided to simply ride those coattails and quietly announce some time back that their Mazda2 had been approved for US sale. Today, the US version debuted in Los Angeles just down the hall from Ford's party.

Like the Fiesta, the Mazda2 has won a lot of awards since its debut around the world in 2007. Some of you might remember that it was voted 2008 World Car of the Year at the New York Auto Show that year. In three years of production, over 370,000 of the little guys ahve been sold. Unlike Ford, which went into great detail about the US Fiesta today, Mazda isn't quite ready to spill all the details of the Mazda2, issuing a press release that just talks about "Zoom-Zoom Concentrated" and its connections with the MX-5 roadster. We assume we'll hear more in the coming weeks or months.

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