This five-passenger sedan offers a surprising amount of space for its size. With 95.5 cubic feet of interior room, the Protege is one of the roomiest vehicles in its class. This gives it an edge over the Nissan Sentra (87.2 cubic feet), Toyota Corolla (88.0), and Honda Civic (89.8).
Tall drivers should find plenty of head room up front and there's even more head room in the back seats. In the legroom department, the driver's seat can be adjusted to provide more than adequate space for a 6-foot driver, while leaving enough breathing room for the passenger sitting directly behind.
All instruments are highly legible and easy to read. Cruise control switches are conveniently situated on the steering wheel, and the power-window buttons can be easily flicked while laying your left arm comfortably on the armrest. A small change compartment on that armrest is ready for toll booths. Cupholders are nicely integrated, an improvement over the flimsy, slide-out versions we see in many cars.
The glove box can be easily reached from the driver's seat. We would have liked a little more storage space in the console. There's enough room for five cassette tapes and another small storage compartment under the stereo affords enough space for two or three more tapes.
Aesthetically, the interior of our Protege was an attractive, monochrome design, with four matching shades of gray. Two-tone cloth seats offered a rich appearance, particularly for subcompact standards.
Owners of small cars are often concerned about cargo space, but the Protege offers 13.1 cubic feet of trunk space. That's plenty of room for a major grocery run or luggage for several people.
Subcompact buyers sometimes say they want a cheap car, but what most of them really want is a smooth ride quality and responsive handling.
The Protege rides as smoothly as many top-notch midsize sedans. It's extremely stable at speeds over 75 mph, a benefit of its stiff chassis.
It also offers sporty handling, making it a lot of fun to drive. The steering is precise and transient response is crisp, a benefit in lane-change maneuvers or on winding backroads. In this regard, the Protege compares very favorably to the Civic, Corolla and Sentra. These are benefits of the rigid chassis, 4-wheel independent suspension and rack-and-pinion power-assisted steering. The front suspension uses MacPherson struts with an anti-roll bar. The rear suspension employs Mazda's twin-trapezoidal link design; the ES model benefits further from a rear anti-roll bar, which reduces body lean in corners and sharpens transient response.
Equipped with an automatic, our ES offered quick acceleration. Those with the standard 5-speed manual transmission accelerate even more rapidly, offer better fuel economy, and are capable of using the available power more efficiently.