The hardware is seriously upgraded at the four corners, too. Brakes are "Euro-spec" high-friction discs all-around with ABS, and the tires are high-performance Bridgestone RE040 215/45 ZR17's on Racing Hart wheels. Suspension mods include re-engineered front struts, a strut tower brace, higher-rate coil springs, re-valved Tokico dampers, and larger-diameter stabilizer bar brackets and bushings. It may all sound esoteric, but this is all serious stuff that any tuner would want.
Mazda has completed the package with a raft of aftermarket items from well-known names, such as a Sparco short-throw shifter and drilled aluminum pedals, Racing Beat exhaust and chassis parts, and that aforementioned killer Kenwood audio system.
Indeed, it is state-of-the-art, at least technically. Derived from last year's system in the Protegé MP3, this sonic-boom machine boasts six speakers plus a sub-woofer, with 50 watts for each of its four channels plus a 250-watt amp. The tunes can be sourced from the radio tuner, a CD, or an MP3. For security and "look at that" reasons, it has a motorized self-hiding faceplate that does not appear until the ignition is turned on. That may be a moot point since anyone interested in "acquiring" such systems will know just what this car has. Said faceplate features a liquid-gel screen with all sorts of moving pictographs to illustrate its various operating modes.