Well... It's not my car; it's my wife's. We have had the car since November but I didn't find this forum until recently.
Being a former Corolla owner, my wife was insistent on buying another Corolla when it was time to buy a new car. After some long discussions, I finally convinced her that she needed to at least test drive some of the cars in the compact car segment. She test drove the Corolla, Civic and Mazda3 (in that order) and came to the realization she wanted a Mazda3. I guess the MZ3 did all the talking for itself. Unfortunately, she is not a "hatchback" person and as a result, I was unable to convince her to buy a Sport.
She loves her car so much that she wouldn't let me drive it; that is until she came home with a puncture one night and asked me to bring it in for repairs... And so my first experience driving a Mazda3 was with a spare...