While making a familiar hilly descent into South Oxfordshire I glanced at our Mazda 3’s instruments and saw a display encouraging changing down from fifth to fourth and then third gear.
Rival cars urge upshifts, often inappropriately, when climbing steep hills, but the sensible logic to harness transmission braking downhill typifies a car built by a firm dominated by engineers.
The higher-efficiency Skyactiv power train equates to 1800rpm at 70mph, helping generate 60mpg over the past 300-plus miles, while that nagging arrow nudges you up a gear when the lack of engine fuss masks being one gear too low.
