Toyota has released specification and prices for the Toyota Yaris on their website. The Toyota Yaris comes in two trim levels, the Toyota Yaris 1.5G and the Toyota Yaris 1.5S. Let’s have a look at the specifications and most importantly price of the latest hatchback on our shores.

Click here to read the rest of Toyota Yaris 1.5G and 1.5S in Malaysia

This month is actually a pretty exciting month for the Malaysian automotive industry even though news seems slightly dead for the past week. But you know what they say, it is always the calmest before a storm. We have 5 car launches this month. One has already been launch, that’s the Naza Sutera. Two from Toyota, another one from Naza and hopefully Proton will be launching the Proton Satria Replacement Model this month too. Then we will be able to see all the cars in full glory at the end of the month at the KL International Motor Show 2006.

Motor Trader has a teaser on the two new CBU Toyota cars that will be revealed tonight (May 16) once the press embargo is over. From the teaser images, it’s confirmed that the two new Toyota CBUs will be the Toyota Wish and the Toyota Yaris hatchback. The Toyota Wish is an MPV competing with the Honda Stream. So far there are 1.8 liter and 2.0 grey import versions on the market, but it’s not known yet whether Toyota will be offering both models here or one of them through official channels. We’ll know tonight I guess. The Toyota Yaris hatchback is offered internationally with 1.0 liter, 1.3 liter, and 1.5 liter engines but it’s mostly likely that we will get the 1.5 liter model. From the spyshots that we’ve seen so far, I think it’s the 4-door model, which will put it in direct competition with the Honda Jazz, both being 4-door CBU hatchbacks.

As for the other Naza car, the Naza NX-02 will be launched tomorrow night (17th May 2006). More details on the Naza NX-02 after the launch, including it’s official name and specifications, and most importantly price.

Now we come to the Proton Satria Replacement Model, let’s hope it launches in time to be showcased at the KL International Motor Show. It should be very soon, anytime now! There you go, one K-car, two 4-door hatchbacks, one 2-door hatchback and an MPV for the month of May 2006. Any car I missed?

Not sure if many of you know this, but there are a series of mini-games over at Proton Berhad’s Proton Savvy mini-site. There are 4 games, 1 for each colour of the car.

The 4 games represent each of the Proton Savvy’s qualities. There’s one which emphasises on the Savvy’s handling qualities, another one representing it’s performance, and another one which I think is to do with the AMT gearbox feature available on the AMT model. If you’re feeling bored at work or something head over to the Proton Savvy Games site to play them.

Proton Edar Sdn Bhd’s CEO Datuk Maruan Mohd Said said to the media yesterday that there will be no further price reductions for Proton cars, despite rumours that there will be a second round of price reductions.

There are rumours going around of a second price reduction around September to October. Some variations of the rumour say it will affect local cars, and some say it will affect all cars. I don’t see what could cause a second round of price reductions though, so these are likely just baseless rumours.

For a full list of Proton prices after they have been reduced due to the new NAP rates, click here.

Photos have been taken down as per request from the photo owner.

BMW totally owned the 2006 International Engine Of The Year awards again, just as it did last year. It’s 5.0 liter V10 engine used in the BMW M5 and BMW M6 won both the Best Performance Engine Award as well as the overall International Engine Of The Year 2006 award for the second year in a row. BMW also won 3 other awards, the 3L to 4L category with it’s BMW Z4M/E46 M3 3.2 liter straight-six engine, and the 2.5L to 3L category with it’s 3.0 liter twin turbodiesel engine. That makes BMW’s total award count at a nice number 5. Let’s have a look at the engines that won awards in the International Engine Of The Year Awards 2006.

Click here to read the rest of 2006 International Engine Of The Year Awards Results

This is a pretty old advertisement dating all the way back to the year 2002, but since the Peugeot 206 is relevant again this year with Naza rebadging the vehicle, here’s a video of the Peugeot 206’s advertisement in India. Maybe some of you have not seen it before. I wish I could turn my old B11 Nissan Sunny 130Y into a Nissan Skyline the same way. Enjoy the video after the jump!

Click here to read the rest of Peugeot 206 India Advertisement

Cycle & Carriage Bintang Bhd, the sole distributor for the Peugeot marque here in Malaysia has plans to set up CKD assembly for Peugeot CKD units here in Malaysia. This is to milk benefits given to CKD assemblers here in Malaysia by the new National Automotive Policy and build up the Peugoet brand.

CCB currently distributes the Peugeot 206CC, Peugeot 307XS, Peugeot 307SW, Peugeot 407, Peugeot 407 Evente, Peugeot 607 and the Peugeot 807 MPV here in Malaysia. CKD models will likely be the cars with higher sales counts. I do not know which are these though. Probably the cheaper models. CCB Managing director Steven G. Foster says CCB has had 40 years of experience in car assembly in Malaysia, and the car market was mostly price-driven, so local assembly of the Peugeot brand to take advantage of the lower taxes would be beneficial for the marque’s performance in the Malaysian market.

Pictured above is my extremely newbie attempt at photoshopping how the Naza NX-02 could look like. Forgive my noob-ness. At least I tried! Advertisements for the new Naza NX-02 have appeared in the newspapers, meaning the car should be launched really soon.

The advertisement (click the image on the left for a bigger version of the advertisement clip) says the car is open for booking now, and the price is given as RM6X,XXX, which should put it in the RM60,000 to RM70,000 range, just as mentioned before. Other specifications mentioned are 1.4 liter MPFI engines, 4-speed Automatic with Porsche Tiptronic System, a well-tuned agile chassis, 5-door versality (hatchback), central digital display, dual airbags, anti-lock braking system, and a 3 year / 100,000 km warranty. The advertisement states that ABS is standard on AT models, which seems to indicate that a manual transmission model will be available. It also means anti-lock brakes will not be available on all models, but dual airbags will likely be standard following the trend set by the Naza Sutera.

Since we don’t have the official specs of the Naza NX-02 yet, I’ll just list the specifications of the Peugeot 206 1.4 Tiptronic that it is based on here. The 1.4 liter engine is a 1,360cc 8-valve single-cam engine that makes 74 horsepower at 5,500rpm and 120Nm of torque at a low 2,800rpm. This should make the new Naza hatchback really nice to drive around the city, as the engine will not be out of breath at lower RPMs. An 8-valve configuration promotes better airflow velocity at low RPMs, hence the excellent low-end torque. Other examples of modern engines using 8-valve configurations are like Honda’s 1.5 liter i-DSI engine which uses 8-valves. Top speed is rated at 161km/h and 0-100km/h acceleration is rated at 15.2 seconds.

This is the original Peugeot 206 dashboard, so I expect the Naza NX-02 version will look like this with slight variations. They did mention a central digital display as one of the features, so I expect it is that small LCD at the top of the center dashboard area. Or they could also mean they’ve moved the dashboard meters to that area, like the Naza Sutera’s and are displaying data like speed and RPM in digital form like Honda S2000, though this is more of wishful hoping from a gadget-cum-car enthusiast than reality, likely not to happen.

Related Posts:
Naza 206 Bestari In-depth
Naza 206 Bestari Sport Concept

The Dodge Hornet Concept is a 5-door hatchback slightly larger than a MINI Cooper. It made it’s world debut back in February 2006 at the 2006 Geneva Motor Show. The Dodge Hornet Concept was conceived after meeting were held regarding requests from U.S. Dealers for a true entry level Dodge vehicle below the Dodge Caliber which retailed for about USD13,000.

Click here to read the rest of 2006 Dodge Hornet Concept