Mazda wants to be a luxury brand when it grows up. We measure its new 3 2.5 Turbo against a premium benchmark to gauge how realistic those ambitions are.

You may not know that Mazda attempted a Lexus-style subbrand of its own in the early 1990s. That’s because the automaker has mostly succeeded in quashing the story of its failed luxury spinoff, Amati, that collapsed with Japan’s economy and never saw the light of day. But while we’ll never know if the rumored 12-cylinder Amati 1000 could’ve been a bigger deal than the Lexus LS400, we haven’t seen the end of Mazda’s upscale ambitions.
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