We'd bet that one reason Millenia hasn't received the notice it deserves has been its styling: handsome, but blandly so, like the suit models in a menswear catalog. That may finally change for 2001, as Mazda has replaced every panel forward of the windshield, along with the tail lights and fascia in the rear. The company likes to call the Millenia's new look "aggressive." We're not sure we'd go that far, but it is sharper, cleaner, and better defined than before.At the same time, Mazda engineers have reinforced the side sills and other structural members, so that the 2001 Millenia is 35 percent stiffer in torsion than the 2000 models. Torsional stiffness is literally the body's resistance to being twisted, and cars with a lot of it (the high-prestige German brands, for example) tend to "feel solid" on the road.
Stem to stern, Millenia's fit and finish is world-class, absolutely as good as it gets. The Millenia is built in a state-of-the-art assembly plant in Japan. Mazda's warranty period goes a few extra miles, to 50,000. Next Page