The 2016 Proton Persona has been spotted on the road yet again, this time by reader Pdud Kronos, who sent us these photos of the Iriz-based B-segment sedan. The mules have dropped a little bit of disguise compared to the last time we’ve seen them, giving us our best view yet of the new car.
Clear to see here is the new headlight shape – compared to the one on the Iriz, the Persona’s is slimmer and sleeker, flowing to the grille. The expanded “Proton Wings” chrome upper grille trim that run across the headlights is also visible in these photos. This matches the renders done by both resident Photoshop expert Theophilus Chin and Proton Design Competition 2014 winner Pow Ying Hern.
The front bumper with the gaping lower grille and protruding chin splitters is reminiscent to the one on the Iriz, although the fog lights are now round in shape instead of triangular – again matching Theo’s render. Down the side, the Persona is visually similar to its hatch sibling, with the exception of the C-pillar kink.
The biggest difference to the Iriz, of course, is the separate boot – and these images give us the clearest look at the design of the unusually short rump. Almond-shaped tail lights eat into the bootlid and are joined together by horizontal strip – it does look more and more like Pow’s render, although the shapely rear valence insert that was also seen in an earlier spyshot is not visible here.
The Persona looks to be taller than most of the competition, keeping the Iriz’s considerable height – the hatch is around 75 mm taller than both the Honda City and the Toyota Vios. This would explain the slightly awkward proportions compared to some of its rivals.
The Persona will be unveiled some time after the soon-to-be-launched Perdana, but ahead of the new Saga. The Iriz’s range of 1.3 litre and 1.6 litre VVT engines are expected to be offered on the Persona at launch, but the car could gain Proton’s new 1.3 litre and 1.6 litre direct-injected (GDI/TGDI) engines after production of the new mills begin by the end of 2017.
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too skinny for sedan.. tak cukup mkn ka
OMG…Look narrow and cacat… will not sell well unless damn cheap.
iriz is not narrow nor skinny. body cue looking good for me. with cvt from jatco and price not much differ from iriz, Im sure it will sell.
i have seen it on the road with the camouflage sticker….well, it is quite bad… the shape is odd… i doubt it would sell well…i hope i am wrong… i do actually like proton’s car….well most of it…
how do you know? are you a proton staff paid to place comments here? I bet it is also designed by morons at that fiberglass kit car maker bufori. i am so upset when my friends in automotive companies told me proton asking bufori to design cars for them?????? why bufori? where is there tech? you go sunway there are better fiber shops….helping australian guy more improtant that own suppliers here?
Another my friend my gf my bf my neighbour my mom my dad my etc story.
Sigh.
kete nie gerenti bestseller kat Bangladesh, Burma, Kemboja & UK
Disgusting like old Mazda 2 or old Pejot 2 sedan..
If price around 40 k.. ofcource can sell.
If more than 55k..forget it..
Persona or Iriz sedan that car name still nothing if use campro engine.. No resale value when trade in after 1 year..
Quiet a looker. Nais
Wah !!! Why am not surprise and ANOTHER spyshot again… 55th spyshot in counting…
georgie,Protong again.
Proton is going porn now too often.Striptease here,striptease there.
Now we have” revamped” persona,accordana,saga.
Still don’t get the point.Buyers want NEW VVTI engines and japanese CVT gearbox.
Campro vvt and Punch gearbox….meant for scrap,for thousands of incoming Banglas to sell .
By the christmas 2017,Protong’s sales would be only about 50-60,ooo units.
It is too late.
Oil giant ,Petronas is chopping 1,000 staff.Wah liao..Protong,amazingly still cant afford to keep so many deadwood around.Incredibly KAYA.
They’re draining a lot of DRB’s income right now. If they don’t do something drastic (which I believe they’re trying to do by releasing 3 cars in a year), they will end up as a factory leasing company. [Source: insider info]
But my insider source says tanjung malim is gearing up for higher volume with suzuki small cars now to be built there.
So siapa betul? ur anonymous insider source or my anonymous insider source?
For a company that bleeding, struggle with perception and quality issue, in dire need for full transformation with low staff morale, banking 3 model a year is truly a suicide mission. How they ensure the quality?
Alberto, Proton still need to find a better way to attract new customers beside spyshot and hope gets Suzuki engine and transmission !
Stop replying to yourself, it looks stupid
it’s not clear but…is it a drum break for rear wheels???
dont worry proton will aim for 5 star ncap anyway.. no moving coffin Im sure
Time to change from saga to this car pakcik Sam
D.O.A
Syukur lah.
Woi, macam mana nak launch? Aku pinya parts pun dah sebulan tak sampai?
So basically, it is a sedan Iriz ..
It doesn’t look too bad really .. But why persona? I don’t get the name choice? After all, it looks like a B segment and previous Persona was a C segment
As what has been told by PROTON previously, they are in the midst of arranging the car segment plus they want to carry the model name as what other brands do. PERSONA is not C segment but more to B+. In the middle B and C. Preve is C..
It is a B-segment now. Preve has took the C-segment spot. But still should not be named Persona. I prefer Iriz sedan.
I think the reason why they dont want to stick with iriz sedan because they want to play with the price and interior space. if iriz sedan that’s it just an iriz in the sedan shape. Nothing much to be changed. But if a different name, they can change a lot of things, even though the body itself is coming from iriz. Then, can play with the price too..
I think this persona interior should be roomier than iriz, by use more thinner seat compared with iriz.
Nice
Ugly…
Persona suppose to be wide and low pure sedan rather than this extended butt Iriz
interm of wide, existing Persona compare to Iriz only 4mm different…..
when can proton stop designing rear bumper with faux diffusal ?
back kind a city like
While the last rendered photo looks like Jetta’s.
The back look heavy. Abit weird
It looks promising!
Iriz’s front
Attrage’s rear
Proton’s fuel consumption
Junk’s quality control
fake one, usually include some RV issue..
Do you sell your junk to bandaraya when they collect it? Junk has no RV!
Much better than dugong, frog or tapir inspired designed jepunis cars
Eee…. This time the butt looks a bit more attractive.
Hmm, the body not proportionate..narrow and tall like old Mazda 2/ford fiesta sedan
Front design and rear design are decent already. But I still don’t get it why they insist on keeping the same height as Iriz.. it’s look awkward tbh.
I understand that they’ve share same platform together but it would be nicer if the height of new Persona decreases. In return, it will gain more stability during cornering (LOTUS HANDLING KICKS IN YO) and aerodynamically improved.
It’d be better if they can decrease the height. But i think it’d sacrifice headroom. If i remember correctly, lower parts of the Iriz platform/chassis is already designed to accomodate hybrid battery systems, so they can’t lower the seating position.
They could counter the proportion issue by putting bigger wheel wells (and bigger wheels).. 16 inch as standard pls lol
Ikr. But I really think that hybrid battery system aren’t coming to the public in several more months/years. They should’ve make it only optional (but this will cost more in return).
The proportion of the wheel fender and the rear boot’s heigh are really bad. But I guess cannot be avoided already since Proton will launch it some months later.. unless they saw our comments and delay the launching event to fix this lol.
I’m afraid there’s no ‘optional’. The platform was designed with it in mind, for ‘futureproofing’. Proton might as well just make another platform if they want to delete it. And that takes a lot of money and time.
Proton must improve the driving experience by replacing the punch cvt with jatco. That is the feedback from iriz owner
why does it look so tiny, looks like saga current mode size rather then the persona current model size….
Frum C segment size to B Segment, really ridiculous..no wonder Prodon bleeding nonstop due to all tis nonsense frum the same management and marketing team year after year…and they continue to get pomotions and fat bonuses
Persona is in B segment. Waja was in C segment with wider seats and better engine replaced by Preve
Torsion bar rear suspension?
Yaa…same with Altis or Vios
So, buy Toyota better!
Dont know why.. always the last design is the worse
Hello Proton, you should name it Iriz sedan instead of Persona… it dont have the “blood” from the current Persona… and lastly… are you guys in R&D had out of idea.. this is what you guys call design??? oh please design something better… >30years experience and this is what we get… ;-(
FYI..cars don’t have blood.
Almera’s bulgy design is the worst in Malaysia today.
Ai yo…this is not persona replacement but saga replacement at up market prices. Proton already said they won’t be selling cheapo cars anymore. So don’t have too high hopes for it to be priced RM45K anymore.
Saga replacement is still base on the current FLX, this Iriz based sedan is the new upcoming Persona. Read carefully before.
Camo, camo, camo. Spyshot, spyshot, spyshot. Testing,testing,testing.
Tapi kereta tak launch launch lagi. Mana Perdana? Cakap mau launch since last year, then say before CNY… now Chap Goh Mei pun sudah over. Lagi 3 bulan sudah mau puasa. Mana Perdana?
Shaping up nicely for the Ugliest Car of 2016 Award.
That goes to your car.
Proton, never seem to finish with those spy shots (aka shiok sendiri shots). Today close rear, tomorrow close the front. Whatever la…
Even if this new car on the road today, I bet after 1 month, the ppl will vomit seeing it on the road. Nothing special anymore.
Cannot beat vomitting after seeing myvi/vios. Too many on road.
Looks kind of promising. Hopefully the transmission is good. Otherwise good luck
Too narrow. Rear lights looks promising, but still, too narrow. Will definitely look bad, like SX4 sedan bad.
Looks odd and disproportional. This should be Iriz sedan, Persona should be wider.
ppl bashing about it looks skinny. truth is they never learnt that this is B segment car. Expect it look like fiesta sedan, rio sedan, etc. IT WILL LOOK NARROW, IT WILL LOOK LIKE THIS. Come on guys, what Proton did to previous SAGA is wrong. It should actually be like this. They need to fix all segments failure they made before. Else all will be looking Sedan but diff car. No use.
Just the fact that i don’t understand. Why it’s Persona but now Saga? Isn’t Saga B-segment, Persona is C?
Saga was in the A+ segment. Persona was always in the B segment. Get your facts straight.
Saga was an A+ segment-priced B-segment car. Persona was a B-segment-priced C-segment car. And it was produced long enough that it’d look smaller than current C-segmenters. So basically Proton has 4 C-segmenters now, Persona, Inspira, Suprima and Preve. That’s a disaster and they have to fix it. I’d just name this one Saga and give the smaller one a new name. Save the Persona name for a real C-segmenter, because Preve/Suprima doesn’t sound right to me (eventho they are good, ok cars)
I thought you figure it out already. P1 has downsized Saga to A segmenter, Persona / Iriz Sedan to B segmenter. Preve remains in C. Look around you will find Saga spyshots in PT
Hum… will the car might look weird at first but remember its still in prototype stage so it is not rite for us to critic the car now…for me at least the new car has a great looking butt(a Butt that’s better than the rear of our darling Preve)….But I don’t hate the Preve I iam just sad that Proton could have Design it better for a car that changed their whole car making philosophy ie (5-Star AnCap ,RISE Structure, Hot-Press Forming and the pietarezizton Full Count Safety Features
I am waiting for their next generation Platform for C-Segment cars ie Preve /Suprima ….oouuuh that’s just makes me curios on Protons Future offerings ….ohh I do recall that Proton has big plans ahead ie after 2017/2018..somthing like they are reviving two of their old Nameplate as told by Tun M now the question remains ie which Nameplate are they talking about …..
Well there are only two cars that are regarded as the best car ever produced by Proton ….hum no prizes for guessing as to which car I am talking about …….So it might only be the Satria or The Putra …hum you think iam crazy dontcha ….Well if you think about it rally carefully its not hard as Proton is in the Process of Launching new Powertrains next year ..no not the 1.3GDI/TGDI or the 1.5GDI/TGDI….what I was referring to are Proton’s PETRONAS developed 2.0L NA , 2.0L Turbo ,2.2L Turbo and the most scariest the 3.0L Supercharged V6(Fyi this engine is nearly 10 years old as it was originally developed for the Lotus APX Crossover that produced nearly 378bhp back in 2008)so its going to break you guys necks driving any Proton’s fitted with this wonderful beast……………LOVE IT !!!!!ha ha ha
Deeply Apologise for the looonnngg write …….
Just bcoz proton is a local brand, we Malaysians have the gut to say all we want here. It’s a free country I know but be careful with our ignorance bcoz there are things that proton is at par if not better with other renowned brands. To all the salesmen out there, grow up.
gila… kereta ni memang sgt sgt sempurna design luarannya… puas aku cari dimana yg nampak cacat… langsung tak ada… design yg perfect!!!
I disagree