VW Cars Sdn Bhd just launched Volkswagen’s first showroom in Malaysia at UOA Central in Jalan Pinang, right in the heart of KL. VW Cars Sdn Bhd is actually a company under the CarTrade group, which recently exited the BMW distribution business, hence all CarTrade showrooms have been converted into VW Cars showrooms, starting with the one at UOA Central. Another showroom cum service center will be located along the Federal Highway in PJ,which will also incorporate a training center for Volkswagen service personnel. Two other showrooms will be located in Johor and Perak.

VW Cars Sdn Bhd’s service centers will also service Volkswagen cars from other distributors, for example the Wald GTis from Amazing Tempo Sdn Bhd - no discrimination there. This is in line with Volkswagen Malaysia’s philosophy to support all Volkswagen cars in Malaysia, so VW Cars does the same.

There has already been a few orders, and plenty of enquiries on Volkswagens, but perhaps the lack of a showroom and actual models to touch, feel and test drive is the cause for slow conversion of enquiries to orders, so perhaps with this showroom, the numbers will pick up. VW Cars Sdn Bhd targets 1200 units sold from now until the end of 2007, that’s about 14 months - about 85 cars a month, with the bread and butter models expected to be the Golf GTI, the Passat and the Touareg. The first shipment of cars will be arriving in three week’s time, so that would be early December 2006.

The price of the Volkswagen Golf GTI DSG looks promising - RM198,888 (RM200,083.00 on the road including insurance, road tax, etc) but the car is lower speced than the Wald GTI. Basically the VW Car Golf GTI lacks the Wald’s 18 inch wheels and sunroof - the VW Car version has 17 inch wheels, which is the stock size.

More photos and price list after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of VW Cars showroom opens, pricelist available

I spotted this very nice kitted out black Proton Savvy at the Mentari Business Park in Sunway this afternoon. Looks pretty nice, the owner went around what’s considered one of the Savvy’s biggest design “defect”, the Waja front lookalike embedded into the rear. Didn’t manage to get a photo of the front though, but it had a mesh grille.

Some updates about the upcoming Mitsubishi Triton. The engine is an updated 2.5 liter twin cam commonrail intercooler turbodiesel making 138ps at 3,500rpm, and 314Nm of torque at 2,000rpm, effectively killing the Nissan Frontier’s claims of being the most powerful pick-up in Malaysia. The Frontier makes 133ps, but at a higher 4,000rpm, and it’s torque is lower by 10Nm. Price is expected to be at RM88,000 for the double cab manual, and RM93,000 for the double cab auto.

More details at Motor Trader, who were invited to the Mitsubishi Triton preview.

The online business daily with more little birds than you can ever imagine The Edge Daily - has a report quoting unnamed sources that the Malaysian government has given the go ahead on giving foreign parties 51% control in Proton’s manufacturing arm, with the keyword here being control. The online daily also reported that talks with Volkswagen AG have resumed as of last month. Proton is also in talks with two other companies - PSA Peugeot Citroen of France and Chery of China.

The potential arrangement between Proton and it’s foreign partner would be similiar to Perodua’s setup with Daihatsu, with distribution under local control but manufacturing under the foreign partner’s control.

With the government having finally realising that pride cannot get into the way of doing business properly, the question is now - is it too late?

Source

Related Readings:
Proton to produce MPV and SUV with Chery
Proton and PSA Peugeot Citroen sign letter of intent

The aging Mitsubishi L200 or the Mitsubishi Storm, as it was called before Mitsubishi Malaysia refreshed it is due to be replaced soon - and it might be sooner than we think! CBU stocks of it’s space age looking successor the Mitsubishi Triton has been spotted in port holding areas. More photos after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of Mitsubishi Triton sighted in Malaysia

Apparently there will be a variant of the Lexus LF-A sold under the Toyota brand under the venerable Supra badge, but instead of using the LF-A’s 500hp V10, it will use a tuned up version of the Lexus GS450h’s 339hp 3.5 liter V6 hybrid engine paired with a 7-speed automatic transmission.

The hybrid powertrain, called the 2GR-FSE, is said to produce power equivalent to a 4.5 liter V8, hence the GS450h moniker. The S in the engine code represents the inclusion of Toyota’s D4-S twin injection system, which combines direct injection with traditional port injection. At low revs, the engine uses a combination of both direct injection and port injection, while at high load conditions only direct injection is used. This supposedly allows for better fuel efficiency.

The new Toyota Supra hybrid sportscar is expected to be unveiled end of 2007.

Related Posts:
2008 Lexus LF-A at Nurburgring
Lexus LF-H Spyshots
Lexus LF-A

The Edge Weekly reports that the latest company to express interest in buying Proton shares is the Mofaz Group, a company that sells imported cars in Malaysia.

In other news, investors are still skeptical about Proton’s ability to turn around. HLG Research maintains it’s sell position on Proton shares, saying it needs foreign participation to compete globally.

Nevertheless, Proton sales in foreign markets such as UK have been slowly but surely improving, with sales in September 2006 for the Uk market doubling despite car registrations dropping by 3.5%. The Proton Satria Neo will be launched in the UK market early next year.

Source

Fiat has produced this promotional video for their upcoming 2nd generation Fiat Bravo, which replaces the Fiat Stilo in it’s product line-up. Also notice that the letters a and v in the new Bravo logo forms the number 2. Pretty smart, though I can’t say I appreciate the way they took the new Fiat logo very much. Click here for my previous post on the Fiat Bravo, and the video is available after the jump!

Click here to read the rest of 2nd gen Fiat Bravo promo video

Okay, so it looks like Peugeot is trying to milk as much cash as it can from the Peugeot 206 body with it’s latest Peugeot 206 Escapade sold in Brazil, but does anyone remember what the original Peugeot 206 Escapade Concept car looked like?

A perfect example of how a production version might be very different from concepts, the Peugeot 206 Escapade Concept shown in 1998 was based on the 3-door version of the Peugeot 206, kitted out to look like an offroader, had a higher suspension (by 5cm to be exact) and came complete with the spare tyre mounted on the tailgate.

Three more photos after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of The original Peugeot 206 Escapade Concept

What kind of joker drifts and does donuts in a BMW 7-series? Apparently it’s something common in Saudi Arabia. This time around though, this particular driver had a spot of bad luck. Video after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of BMW 7-series drift crash