I think Mazda Canada is in that general area. Might've been a pre-production M3 in the hands of a distributor employee. Or a journalist (they're in the hands of journalists, now that pricing and specs have been released).
...FYI, definitions from closest to production to furthest from production:[/B
Pre-production cars are built (for the most part) from production tooling. They look like production from a distance but, up close, sometimes look pretty rough, with misalignments and, usually, shiny plastic interior trim (the textures are added in the tooling in regular production cars).
Prototype cars are built from prototype tooling. They're used to validate both the tooling itself (before the huge investment is made in production tooling) and the product (just in case something doesn't "work")
Mules are hand-built cars, very early in development. These cars, since they're so early (designs often not completely finalized) and often the first vehicles driven out in the open, sometimes feature bodies of existing vehicles to approximate the size, weight, aero properties of the intended final design. A spy photo of one of these cars is pretty much useless if you're interested in what a future car will look like, since it's not all representative of final design/ styling. These cars are sometimes referred to as "Frankenstein" cars. A good example of a mule would be the early Tribute/Escape mules, which used a large part of 1st generation MPV 4WD body panels/ body-in-white]...
