![]() Meanwhile, the regular 2001 Protege, which arrives in showrooms in February, carries some significant upgrades for a car that was all-new less than two years ago. The name has not been figured out yet, but the character has. It will use a 150-horsepower version of the new 2.0-liter engine tuned by the Mazda specialist Racing Beat, and it will have most of the aero and performance goodies from the SEMA MPS show car. Mazda has freshened the interior of the Protege as well.Įven the sedan will be a more obvious per-formance car soon when the MPS version arrives in showrooms sometime after the Protege 5. The Protege 5 comes with all the aerodynamic bodywork, spoiler and skirts from the MPS sedan show car unveiled at SEMA. ![]() Rather than go the four-wheel-drive, faux-SUV route that's so popular now (Subaru Outback), Mazda boldly charted its own course with this wagon, er, hatchback, er, five-door. Who are they kidding? It's a wagon, people, but it's a good-looking performance wagon. So Mazda wants you to call it a five-door, and to that end they named it the Protege 5. The bigger Protege news might be the wagon version due in Mazda showrooms in mid-May. The Protege sedan gets something between a face-lift and a remake for 2001, with a powerful new 2.0-liter engine, a stiffened body and revised front end styling. But those tweaks, combined with the blanding-down of the segment, mean the little old Protege could have big things in its future. Well, it's still there and it has a few new tweaks. Hey, anyone remember the Mazda Protege? It sits down there in the sub-compact category, dutifully selling in the 50,000-to-60,000-a-year range, doing battle with big-time stalwarts like Civic and Corolla. The 2001 version of the little sedan has received a bit of reworking, including a more powerful 2.0-liter engine and a front end makeover. Subcompacts are fun to drive, and the Protege is no exception.
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