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Mazda will be showcasing it’s next generation Mazda 6 at the 2007 Frankfurt Motor Show next month. The Mazda 6 is known as the Mazda Atenza in Mazda’s home country of Japan. It is based on an updated CD3 platform called the CD3-2, and will share most of it’s underpinnings with other Ford cars like the Ford Fusion and the Lincoln MKZ.

The fact that the new Mazda 6 will have alot of things in common with the Lincoln MKZ could mean that a high performance Mazdaspeed version of the car could be powered by Ford’s new 3.5 liter Twin-Force Duratec twin turbocharged V6 engine producing over 400 horsepower.

Suzuki is set to unveil a new mid-sized sedan at the 2007 Frankfurt Motor Show in September. The new big brother to the Suzuki SX4 Sedan will be Suzuki’s first self-developed mid-sized sedan in a long time. It’s current self-developed models mostly include small sedan and compact SUVs.

Suzuki calls the new sedan the Suzuki Kizashi, and if the production version of this new sedan proves to be popular, we can expect the Suzuki brand to move further upmarket in the segment sizes.

Related Posts:
Suzuki to unveil new D-Segment car at Frankfurt 2007

The Mitsubishi Lancer 2.0 GT was launched yesterday, and I managed to attend the public launch thanks to an invite from EON Automart Sdn Bhd - thank you Ellis!

This latest entrant into the coveted C-segment market is a fully imported CBU unit from Japan. Now you might expect it to be abit pricey because of this - just look at the price of the other C-segment CBU Japan car - the Mazda 3.

Rumours of a sub-120K ringgit price seemed to indicate a CBU from another ASEAN country. But Mitsubishi Motors Malaysia truly surprised us all with an aggressively lower price of RM 115,980 OTR with insurance for a CBU Japan car!

Anyway, let’s get down to what the Lancer offers other than a competitive price. The new Lancer is bigger than the previous model, which might give us a clue on why Mitsubishi decided to call it the Galant Fortis in Japan instead of the Lancer - Japan normally classifies cars according to dimensions. The 2007 Mitsubishi Lancer is only available in one trim level for Malaysia - the Lancer 2.0 GT.

The Lancer 2.0 GT packs 155PS at 6,000rpm and 199Nm of torque at 4,250rpm under it’s hood. I will not go into further details on the engine here, please read my previous detailed post on the 4B11 engine for more details. It’s a must read for those who are slightly more geek-inclined. The Lancer 2.0 GT is only available with the INVECS-III CVT transmission in Malaysia, so stick shift fans will be slightly disappointed. However, it makes up for it somewhat with 6 virtual gears that you can cycle through with the steering-mounted magnesium paddle shifters. Suspension consists of a MacPherson strut setup at the front and a multi-link setup at the rear.

The feature list is impressive. You have a full sporty bodykit complete with a rear wing that’s not too large in my opinion, and you’ve got huge 18 inch alloy wheels. One thing I noticed is that despite 18 inch wheels, fender gap is still very noticeable, so for the best aesthetics most will be looking to lowering the car.

On the interior, you have a 6-disc in-dash CD changer with a 6-speaker audio system, steering wheel audio controls, and fully automatic single zone air conditioning. No cruise control though. The interior is done up in a nice dark grey colour with geometric check trim panels - I suspect some enterprising people will be developing carbon fiber replacement panels for these soon - could possibly look really nice.

Unlike the LCD and push-button interface for automatic air conditioning that most cars have, the Lancer’s dash design looks like your conventional three-knob manual air conditioning control at first glance - but it is in fact automatic. Operation of the auto air conditioning looked intuitive to me, simply push one of the knobs to activate automatic climate control for the set temperature.

The meter panel consists of two large meters (speedo and RPM) flanking a small multi-information display LCD that lights up with red lettering. The multi-information display can show a few screens with information such as average speed and fuel consumption, engine coolant temperature and odometer, distance until empty and odometer, as well as a maintenance schedule record.

The Mitsubishi Lancer 2.0 GT comes with sporty leather seats - the leather used is Nappa leather which is a premium leather, none of that PVC fake leather stuff. According to Wikipedia, Nappa leather is a full-grain leather, typically dyed, made from unsplit kid-, lamb- or sheep-skin, and noted for softness and durability. It is often used in high-quality leather products such as high-end furniture and accessories such as wallets and luggage. The front seat is height adjustable, while the rear bench has an arm rest with two cupholders built into it, and the whole bench can be folded down in a 60:40 split in case you require more storage capacity.

The Lancer 2.0 GT’s front seats have sensors built into them - these work hand in hand with the SRS airbag system, feeding the airbag deployment logic data on the driver’s seat position and the front passenger’s weight. Other than the two front SRS airbags, the Lancer 2.0 GT also has anti-lock brakes and electronic brakeforce distribution, however there is no form of electronic stability control.

The rear boot has 400 liters of storage capacity, and while I could not find any handle to open the boot from the rear, there is a boot lid release button on the remote control that you can press if you need access to the boot without having to pull the boot release lever from inside the car.

The Mitsubishi Lancer 2.0 GT is only available in four colours - Cool Silver Metallic, Medium Purplish Gray Mica, Red Metallic, and Black Mira. The Lancer comes with a 5-year or 100,000km warranty, with free maintenance for the first 3 years or 50,000km.

Have a look at two videos after the jump, as well as more photos of the Lancer.

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2007 Mitsubishi Lancer - The New 4B11 Engine

Click here to read the rest of Mitsubishi Lancer 2.0 GT in Malaysia

This Kia Spectra5 was spotted today traveling north from KL to Penang on the North South Highway. The Kia Spectra5 is also called the Kia Cerato in other markets, and it comes in both sedan and 5-door hatchback form.

From the looks of it, the 5-door hatchback might be making it’s way onto our local shores before the sedan. Fans of 5-door hatches will have an additional choice soon - there are not many C-segment hatches around here unlike the many B-segment hatches. As far as I can recall, we only have the Optra5 and the Ford Focus 2.0, and in a way, the Skoda Octavia, though that is technically a lift-back instead of a hatch.

Click here to read the rest of Kia Spectra5 on the North South Highway

We will be getting two variants of the Nissan Livina MPV here in Malaysia, according to a report by The Edge last week. The Nissan Livina will be available in Malaysia in locally assembled form with engine capacities of both 1.6 and 1.8 liters, and both models will be priced with an under-RM100,000 price tag. These engine capacities are similar to the options for the recently launched Nissan Latio - the HR16DE and the MR18DE.

Edaran Tan Chong Motor hopes to attract middle-income customers - this will put the Nissan Livina smack in the middle of the mid-sized lower segment MPV market. That would put it somewhat in competition with the Toyota Avanza, the Suzuki ER-V and the larger Toyota Innova. However, the Nissan Livina promises a better, more comfortable drive as it is based on a monocoque car chassis.

More information on the 7-seater Nissan Livina can be obtained in the related posts:

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Nissan Livina to arrive in 2nd half of 2007

Source

UPDATE: Proton Persona SE now on sale for RM59,800!

When a new national car is about to be launched, many will start to speculate on the name, and this is also the case with the new Proton sedan.

Word passing through the grapevines is that the new Proton sedan will be called the Proton Persona, and there was even a little photo being circulated of the sedan with the word Persona on it’s number plate.

Today we get a little confirmation - though not 100% sure as it is not from Proton’s mouth. The Edge carries an article on the new Proton Sedan and it calls the new car the Proton Persona. This name is not new, as it has been used by Proton in the past as the export market Proton Wira’s name in the UK.

The article also mentions Proton targets to sell about 4,000 units of the Proton persona a month, though industry analysts from RHB Research Institute thinks a figure of 2,000 to 2,500 Proton Personas a month is more achievable and sustainable.

Proton has placed a few units of it’s upcoming new sedan in four venues across Malaysia, but before you excitedly head on to the venue to have a look at it, there’s just one thing - the sedan is in a giant box! What you can do is just peek through a few holes to have a look at the sedan inside. Not sure if there is a light in the box so it might be best to bring some form of torch light along! UPDATE: The interior of the box is lit!

The giant boxes with the new Proton sedan inside them are located at The Curve, Mutiara Damansara, Selangor (10am to 10pm); Proton showroom in Jalan Sultan Ahmad Shah, Penang (8am to 8pm); Proton Showroom in Plentong, Johor (8am to 8pm) and Giant Hypermarket, Jalan Gambang, Kuantan (10am to 10pm).

“Were happy with the excitement building up for our new sedan. PROTON began to accept bookings from 22 July 2007 and all the public could see then was a visual of the silhouette of the car. That was enough for quite a number to commit and make bookings for the new sedan. However, we have been receiving many requests that we show more and that was what prompted us to come up with this peekaboo idea of showing the actual car, but just enough only,” said Proton managing director Datuk Syed Zainal Abidin Syed Mohamed Tahir.

Here is another shot of the Proton BLM contributed by reader Barney Low, but unfortunately it doesn’t really reveal much details that we haven’t seen already in previous spyshots of the Proton BLM here on this site.

However, still seeing this car prowling the highways on tests assures us that the project is still on-going, and soon we’ll be able to look at Proton’s idea of what a successor to it’s bread and butter Proton Saga should be.

Previous Proton BLM Spyshots:
Is this the new Proton BLM?
Clearer Proton BLM side profile spyshots
Proton BLM Artist’s Impression by Maru

The Honda Civic sedan line-up is now complete in Malaysia, with the dual launch of both the Honda Civic Type R and the Honda Civic Hybrid in Malaysia, fully imported from Japan. Read more after the jump about the Honda Civic Type R, with info about the Civic Hybrid coming in a following post.

Click here to read the rest of Honda Civic Type R launched in Malaysia

This is Toyota’s answer to the Golf R32 - the Toyota Blade Master G! The Japanese market Toyota Blade loses it’s 165 horsepower 2.4 liter inline-4 and gets a new heart - a detuned version of the 3.5 liter 2GR-FE V6 from the Lexus IS350 putting out 276 horsepower and 344Nm of torque. This is matched with a 6-speed sequential automatic gearbox with paddle shifters.

The Blade Master G’s specs should make it’s way into the European market soon as the top of the range version of the Toyota Auris to have a showdown with the Golf R32.