When a car completes its 40,000-mile long-term test in our hands, we often don’t know its fate after we’re done with it. At least, not specifically. Generally, when a car’s test is over, the manufacturer takes it back, cleans it up a bit (we hope), and sends it off to auction, where it’s typically bought by a dealership and unceremoniously sold like any used car. In recent memory, the only former long-term car we actively sought information on?and only to see if it had depreciated enough for one of us hacks to afford it?was our 2011 Cadillac CTS-V wagon. That 556-hp, stick-shift wündercar was on its third owner and living out its years in Flint, Michigan. The discovery of our former long-term Mazda 2 was far less intentional, happening by complete accident during a beer-fueled late-night internet search for a cheap used hatchback.
The editor doing the searching (totally not this author) came across a nifty-looking 2011 Mazda 2 in Liquid Silver with the must-have five-speed manual transmission on offer at a Chicago-area dealership. Handily, the listing came with a free Carfax report, which revealed the car’s first owner was a “corporate fleet” based out of Irvine, California, but the car was registered in Michigan. Under its first owner’s care, the Mazda also happened to have been religiously serviced at Ann Arbor’s Sesi Mazda until its odometer hit 40,386 miles and it was sold at auction to a Chicago-area ...