The Mazda3 has won the 2020 World Car Design of the Year award, one of the special awards of the World Car Awards (WCA).

The Mazda3 is the second to be named World Car Design of the Year, following the Mazda MX-5 winning the award in 2016.

The WCA was established in 2004 by an international group of automotive journalists, and the judging panel this year consisted of 86 journalists from over 25 different countries. The final result was announced by the WCA in Toronto on 8 April 2020.

In pursuit of Mazda's design philosophy, Car as Art, the Mazda3 adopts a matured Kodo design, which has received recognition all over the world. Taking inspiration from Japanese aesthetics, Mazda adopted a 'less is more' approach when designing the Mazda3 and stripped away superfluous elements from the car's form.

The result is a unique design that creates subtle undulations of light and shadows gliding over the car's smooth body, giving birth to a natural and powerful expression of vitality. Furthermore, despite sharing the same model name, the hatchback and sedan models have distinct personalities - the design of the hatchback is emotive, the sedan elegant.