It’s not just Honda and BMW who have been putting their F1 experience to use in their road cars. Meet the Lexus LF-A.

Click here to read the rest of Lexus LF-A

This piece by Zainul Arrifin in the NST seems to indicate that Proton used to have a Japanese managing director back in 1988 - Mr. Kenji Iwabuchi, from Mitsubishi Motor Corp.

The top position went back to a Malaysian in 1993. Datuk Mohd Nadzmi Mohd Salleh. 1988-1993, that’s 5 years.

So a foreigner in the top position at Proton isn’t really as foreign as you think it is.

The Acura NSX - This beauty’s production is to be stopped end of this year.

The successor to the venerable Acura NSX has been announced and it will come with Honda’s SH-AWD all-wheel drive system.

Click here to read the rest of New Acura NSX to have SH-AWD

The Toyota Prius has been a hit especially in the USA where the people love it for it’s excellent fuel economy and the tax breaks that comes with using a hybrid vehicle.

Click here to read the rest of Toyota Prius modified for extra fuel economy

The Ariel Atom. This my friends, is not what I’d consider a car. More like a Go-Kart. But it’s powered by a supercharged Honda K20 engine making 300 horsepower on a 456kg body. Madness? Yes. It is fast? YES!

Click here to read the rest of The Ariel Atom

A monster in the rear view mirror…

Mitsubishi Delica VR4?

WordPress 1.5.2 is available now. It has a few bug fixes and security updates.

Refer to the codex for upgrade instructions.

WordPress users who have not patched their WordPress from the latest security vulnerability should upgrade to this version immediately. To those who have, upgrade anyway

WordPress 1.5.2 Download Link

I just blogged about the Suzuki X2 concept a few days ago and now the Suzuki Grand Vitara is here in Malaysia! I saw the ad in Sunday Mail today.

Click here to read the rest of Suzuki Grand Vitara

There are rumours going around that the Hafei Lobo will be coming to Malaysia soon.

Click here to read the rest of Hafei Lobo 1.1

Lim Chee Ming writes in…

Some of the points that Kuli had brought up during the video interview may be less accurate or not updated but i agree with his general point of view, that we do not have the economies of scale to compete competitively in the world markets. We can have the lowest engineering cost in the world but we don’t have the economies of scale in the manufacturing because our domestic market is so small and our export non existence. Can u imagine that premium manufacturer such as BMW sold 1.2 million cars a year, at such high profit margin, while our Proton manufactures around 180,000 last year? Although BMW’s engineering cost may be 10 times that of Proton but if we look ath its production volume and the kind of margin it made on its car, what does that tell us? This is not to mention that Korean players such as Hyundai makes 4 million cars a year and GM even more. Tun M has even mentioned in a recent interview in Malaysian Business that Proton needs to make 500,000 units a year to have the scale of economies. How can Proton ever achieve that consider that its production is only a quarter of that? Does it mean protection for another 20 years for Proton and Malaysian buyers continue to be deprived of choices for reasonably good quality cars and affordable prices?

I know you’re a car enthusiast but perhaps you’re not mature enough to know abuot how the economics work.

I did not make any claims in this blog that I know how the economics of car manufacturing work. From where did you get that assumption?

My dear readers… any comments on what he has shared?