Mazda should swing in the marketplace in Ireland next year.

With the Semperit Irish Car of the Year 2003 winner 6 series rolling out of the showrooms in truly impressive form, and the 2 getting a strong response in the supermini segment for the quality of its finish and the performance from its 1.25-litre base engine, there's a good foundation for a jump in brand market share when customers get a chance to buy the new 3 series car.

Just to put the situation in perspective, in the first eight months of the year, Mazda has seen sales grow in Europe from 98,988 to 136,433, an increase of 37.8 per cent.

This gives the brand a 1.4 per cent share of the Western European market for the year, compared to one per cent last year.

Mazda in Ireland will be expecting to sell some 4,000 new Mazda 3s next year, which will give the car about 7 per cent share in the C segment in Ireland.

The car arrives here shortly in both hatchback and saloon forms. Engines will include 1.4- and 1.6-litre petrol and a 1.6-litre turbodiesel which is bred from a Ford/PSA Group joint programme. There will also be a 2-litre petrol version.

The 1.4-litre engine will be limited to the hatchback 5-door, and the saloon will start with a 1.6-litre. An automatic version will also be available with this engine.

No 3-door or coupe version is envisaged for the moment under Mazda's global model policy.

In a similar way as the Mazda 6 has been successfully marketed, there will be an entry level version of the Mazda 3, a Comfort version, and after that there will be variants upgrading by some E1,500-E2,000 steps at a time.

After some 30 years of Mazda 323 sales in Ireland, there's a strong and loyal customer base for the new version. It shouldn't be hard to sell to them, but I suspect there will be significant conquest sales.

The new Mazda is built on the upcoming new Focus platform, as is the C-MAX compact MPV which Ford has just launched here. The platform also carries the next Volvo S40, due in Ireland next spring.

The 3 is also highly styled, particularly strong in the front with the now very definitive Mazda family look making it a car that will be easily identified as it comes up in the rear view mirror.

The 'tubes behind glass' lighting design is also very strong, and a far cry from the rather bland enclosures of the outgoing 323.

The side view of the hatchback is of a quite sporty car, though at the same time elegant in its proportions. The rear quarter pillar has a neat cutaway to its front that is designed as much to lighten the mood in the rear of the car as it is to style, and indeed works quite well in providing an extra segment of visibility at an angle where it can be very important. The spoiler at the top of the back window is as integrated as they come and forms a very pleasing context with the back door and the triangulated wrap of the lights cluster.

The back window has the V-shaped lower line that is now part of the Mazda look, and which is smart as well as adding to rear visibility in the current application. In truth, it is hard to find a flaw in the package from a styling point of view. Coherent is the word that comes to mind.

Inside the car there's a similar sense of sportiness as we perceived from outside. The dashboard is interesting in design, with many cues taken from the 6, particularly in the use of metallised trim in the centre stack and around the instruments. Those same instruments are individually cowled and styled rather unusually in white and black with red wands. Though I have a memory from this first drive that I wasn't entirely happy with their clarity, I won't be definitive on this until I get to drive the car over time.

Switchgear design is something where Mazda have made great strides in their most recent cars, with large and easy-to-operate rotary knobs making a better contribution to general driving safety than is often the case in many cars.

There are a number of different fabric styles available in the trim, and in the car we drove at the international press launch it had a vertical stripe pattern in light/dark blues that was reminiscent of some American tastes of the 60s. A bit zoot suit, maybe? Which I guess works with zoom-zoom. And anyway, in modern materials and with 2003 quality, it actually works quite well and adds something to an ambience that is very go-go.

The overall impression, though, is of exceptionally good quality and sound build.

Space is good, particularly in the back, and where I sometimes have problems with headroom and headrestraints positioning in the rear of even larger cars, this is not a difficulty with the new Mazda 3.

There's a decent luggage area, wide and without suspension strut intrusion, and with the rear seats down there is very practical and useful space for the suburban trolleying of home and leisure stuff.

On the launch run around the downslands and horse country of Chantilly we had the chance to drive 2- and 1.6-litre petrol versions. The former is punchy and would be a terrific drive in any circumstances, but it will not really be a big seller in Ireland because the penal taxation system hits engines of this size very hard. But the 1.6-litre was a well balanced drive in itself, and both cars gave off a sense of "c'mon, let's go". I suspect that this new Mazda will, even in the 1.4-litre that is to be the bread-and-butter version here, totally change the market's perception of Mazda in this segment from 'sound, reliable and ... well, dull' to 'sound, reliable and ... fun!'

And then there's the saloon, of which we saw a prototype at launch, and if style is the predicator in this very important format in Ireland, there are competitors holding the high ground at the moment who should well be watching this arrival with some concern.

There are several new head-to-head competitors coming along, with Golf, Astra and Focus all on the way in brand new versions. Thing is, Mazda 3 will have a really strong head start on all of them for 2004, and the actual battle is likely to be between the 3 and the new Renault Megane in the C segment saloons, while in the hatchback stakes the brand new 3 will have the edge at least until the summer.

Bottom line? Buyer wins all the way ...