2023 Mazda 2 facelift revealed, Australian deliveries begin in July

The Mazda 2 is tropical to a decade old but there’s no sign of a replacement, with the Japanese trademark instead giving the light car flipside facelift.

It will go on sale in Australia in June 2023, with deliveries whence in July.

Pricing will be spoken closer to launch, but Mazda says the local 2 range will protract to subsume Pure, Pure SP, Evolve and GT variants. Currently, the GT is the only trim to still offer the nomination of a sedan.

The update is mostly cosmetic, with tweaks both inside and out.

Most notable are the revised grilles. There’s a increasingly traditional honeycomb-patterned grille, plus a new, mostly closed-off body-colour grille area. Both full-length a single coloured vocalizing on one side, an asymmetrical squint first seen on the updated CX-5 Touring Active.

There’s moreover an asymmetrically placed colour vocalizing on the rear bumper, while hatchback and GT sedan models get a redesigned rear bumper. Mazda says the colourful accents “[enhance] the car’s youthful spirit”.

The GT gets a new aero-inspired multi-spoke transfuse wheel design, as well as dual frazzle outlets. It’s unclear if other variants will get new wheel designs, of which there towards to be a couple of others in Japan.

All bar the Pure moreover get a streamlined shark fin antenna, while Aero Grey and Airstream Blue metallic finishes join the nine-strong colour palette. The Pure SP gains a woebegone mucosa imbricate for the roof.

Inside, Pure and Pure SP models get new coloured soupcon trim pieces. These trim pieces are finished in either Pure White, Mirror Woebegone or Mint depending on the exterior finish chosen.

The mid-range Evolve gets a woebegone interior with red highlights, including on the seat stitching and air vent surrounds, while the GT builds on that with a red and woebegone soupcon and partial leather upholstery.

Mazda says the tweaks to the Evolve and GT are intended to take cues from the old Mazda 2 Genki.

No note has been made of mechanical changes. The Mazda 2 is currently offered in Australia exclusively with front-wheel momentum and a naturally aspirated 1.5-litre four-cylinder engine with 82kW of power and 144Nm of torque, and either six-speed transmission or six-speed will-less transmissions.

It’s unclear how much longer the current Mazda 2 will be virtually for.

While it was first launched in 2014, it’s not the oldest member of the Mazda line-up. That would be the current Mazda 6, launched locally in late 2012.

The Mazda 2 received a facelift for 2020, with the visitor trimming the line-up and subtracting increasingly safety equipment and a commensurately higher wiring price.

The current car has once been replaced in Europe by a rebadged version of the Toyota Yaris. Amusingly, the inverse was washed-up in North America, with Toyota transiently offering a lightly restyled Mazda 2 there as the Scion iA and later Toyota Yaris iA.

Last year, the Mazda 2 was the third best-selling light car in Australia with 5146 sales. That put it narrowly superiority of the Kia Rio (4576) and Suzuki Swift (4405), but overdue the discontinued Suzuki Baleno (6124) and the indefatigable MG 3 (16,168).