I attended the VIP ND day in North Berwick and drove several just within safe adhesion limits over some fantastic B roads the Mazda team had set up on the Nav,just like dozens of others that day.
It was a blazing hot day, and the roads begged for it.These Mazda UK owned fleet cars were well used shall I say
as was their purpose..being "sacrificial" vehicles thrown into a gladatorial ring of tyre-kicking "pilots" as well as appreciative & existing 5 owner/ drivers.
I do know they were all due to be spirited away into dealer networks when all the launch promotions were over.
I'd not contemplate one of them if I found out it was an X roadshow demo.
I could see feathering on the outside front sipes on the 2 ltre I piloted, and that thing had a bit less than 2k on the clock. It was quite easy to make the brakes stink with fatigue.
They were caned utterly senseless by countless people, myself incuded, up and down the UK for weeks.
If you are looking for a "pre-cherished" ND in a couple of years, I'd really dig into it's past because I'd not want to blow, by then say even 9k to 12k on any vehicle that's been farted in and thrashed off the limiter by countless others.
Huge doses of Caveat Emptor in my opinion.
A lot of the ones to watch out for in future...or now... have registration plates beginning with either
VN15 or VF15.
On the other hand, there seem to be more dealer registered examples too. Plenty choice.
As an aside, I found them pretty epic..and oddly the 1500cc best fun as you could rev it's nuts off to get anywhere with brio.
The 2 ltrs were, in a funny way, just too easy to belt along. So refined, there was little challenge involved.
In fact, they were so good on several levels my 2002 Sport, though in tip top nick relatively speaking felt heavy, ponderous, and agricultural on the way home for a good few miles until I got used to it again.
