Archive for Local News

Click for enlarged image

Trailerloads of the Perodua D46T MPV are on their way somewhere, and from the looks of the livery on the side of one of the exposed vehicles, it looks like they are promotional units, probably to be used as display units or test drive units. These shots are thanks to long-time reader KK Chen.

Click for enlarged image

The Perodua D46T MPV is based on the Toyota Passo Sette so if you absolutely need to know more about this new model to hit our local roads you can refer to my story on the Passo Sette, but for a more accurate picture of what we’ll get in our Perodua version you’ll have to wait for the full story after the launch next week on the 23rd of November 2009 at 5pm.

The new Proton Exora Basic (also known as the B-Line) is Proton’s cheapest Exora variant, priced at only RM57,548.00 for the manual transmission solid white model for the Peninsular Malaysia. The following is the full price list:

It is available at all Edar and EON branches nationwide and the booking fee is RM500. Here’s a list of what has changed compared to the M-Line and H-Line:

• Manual transmission only
• Driver airbag only
• Seatbelt pretensioner for driver only
• Passenger airbag replaced with tissue box holder
• No front seat back pockets
• No grocery hook at the front passenger seat
• No aircond outlet for 2nd row, but 3rd row outlets remain
• Fabric flat knitting for the seats (M-Line uses fabric flat woven)
• Only 2 headrests for the second row
• No third row headrests
• No door trim inserts
• No assist grip for the third row
• No inner carpet deck box
• No luggage lamp
• No rear power socket
• Matte black finishing for gear knob, panel shift lever, door inner handle, center panel finishing, side mirror hosing finishing, exterior door handle, rear garnish
• No front grille garnish
• No front fog lamp
• 15 inch steel wheel with cover
• No reverse sensors
• No ABS and EBD

On another note, if you’ve ran out of ideas of a family activity this weekend, you can check out the “Proton 4 You” customer appreciation event held at all Proton Edar and EON outlets throughout Malaysia.

They’ve planned a variety of family-oriented programs at all outlets such as coloring contests, family quizzes and games wih prizes to be won. Proton will also throw in free personal assurance worth RM10,000 for all customers who book a Proton car on that weekend. There will also be Proton iCare teams at almost every outlet to perform free 20-point car inspections.

New stocks of the Honda Civic Type R is officially in Malaysia! The car is very much the same track car for the road as before, but there are a few changes here and there. There are no changes to the front end but the rear end now gets the diamond cluster design for the tail lamps. The side mirrors are now power-retractable. Finally, the 2-DIN player in the interior now gets a USB port for you to load your MP3 files from.

There are currently nearly 200 pre-facelift Honda Civic Type R on the road, sold officially by Honda and not counting the grey imports. Malaysia is the only country in the world other than Japan to get the sedan Type R via the official Honda distributor. The rest of the world especially Europe gets the hatchback version. Recently the hatch version was added to the Japanese line-up as well.

The best part is even with the high demand the price has remained at RM199,980, as with the pre-facelift model. We probably can’t say the same about the Civic Hybrid (introduced the same time as the Type R) in a year’s time, when the excise duty exemption ends You can find out more technical details about the Type R by visiting the link below.

Related Posts:
Honda Civic Type R launched in Malaysia

A reader sent in these shots of the new Mercedes-Benz E-Class Sedan and E-Class Coupe at a private preview at Carcosa Seri Negara sometime earlier this month. Mercedes-Benz Malaysia has already taken up teaser press ads in the newspapers with the tag line “Engineered around you” for the launch.

The base model for the E-Class and undoubtedly probably the most popular one in terms of sales will be the E 200 CGI, which will be powered by Mercedes-Benz’s new turbocharged direct injection engine. We’ve been waiting for this engine a long time, so the the old 1.8 liter Kompressor can be sent into retirement.

Look after the jump for a full photo gallery of the cars.

Click here to read the rest of New E-Class Sedan and Coupe at Carcosa

According to Deputy Finance Minister Datuk Chor Chee Heung, the new fuel subsidy management system will be implemented from May 2010 onwards, so I suggest everyone be prepared to restructure your household’s monthly budgets for a potential increase in fuel expenditure, especially if you are a middle income earner, a group that like its namesake are constantly squeezed around the world.

The system is currently being finetuned and studies on the subsidy distribution and target groups are currently still underway. The system’s exact mechanism will be announced after the study is completed and a decision has been made.

The PM had previously announce in his Budget 2010 speech that the system would use our MyKad identification card.

Here’s some interesting news – the 2nd generation Nissan X-Trail that has been around since year 2007 is making its debut in Thailand in Q1 2010.

The photo you see above is of the new model although it looks very similiar to the old one. More of a minor evolution of the old one in terms of design. The interior has been completely revamped though, and the center meter panel is now gone, replaced with a conventional one behind the steering wheel. The chassis is a new one shared with the Qashqai, with wheelbase increased by 5mm over the old model to 2630mm.

The X-Trail will be launched with a sole engine option – a 2.0 liter model mated to an XTRONIC CVT transmission with a 6 speed manual shifting mode. The 2.0 liter engine is not the old QR20DE found in the first generation X-Trail 2.0 sold here but the newer MR20DE model that you can also find in the Nissan Sylphy.

With the X-Trail soon in Thailand, there could be a chance that we can finally enjoy the new X-Trail here in Malaysia, as the SUV can be sourced from Indonesia whether in CBU or CKD pack form. Yes, the Thai market X-Trail is built in Indonesia, but the MR20DE engines are built in Thailand. Tan Chong tends to drag on their model lifespan here for as long as possible, resulting in a product lineup that’s an utter yawnfest if not for their ‘mother trucker’. But it could be because of a lack of support from Nissan.

Click the images above for larger hi-res view

These are the first few product photos of the new Volvo S60 officially released by the Volvo PR team as a preview to a full-fledged unveiling soon. The car will make its public debut at the Geneva Motor Show 2010 in early March next year, and production will begin early summer 2010 at Volvo’s Belgian plant.

No other details or specifications have been revealed other than the fact that you can specify an optional feature called Pedestrian Detection that can detect pedestrians in front of the car and brake automatically if the driver doesn’t react in time.

Looking pretty good I must say, though I would prefer if the front end were to be a little sharper. It’s a little soft now, especially with the big soft ‘eyes’ (headlamps) and all. What do you think, do you like it?

Volkswagen Malaysia announced yesterday that VW Cars Sdn Bhd was no longer an authorised dealer of Volkswagen cars in Malaysia. This is some interesting news as VW Cars is one of the more prominent Volkswagen dealers in Malaysia, with showrooms in PJ and The Curve. A sister company of VW Cars is also the official dealer for Abt in Malaysia. They are part of the Cartrade group who used to be BMW dealers. I wonder what will happen to the bookings for the new Volkswagens (Scirocco, Passat CC, Golf GTI) made through their showrooms as they are sure to have a decent amount in hand. Hopefully if there is any kind of transition etc it will be smooth for customers.

Proton MD Datuk Syed Zainal Abidin has revealed in an interview with Business Times that the Italian design company contracted to develop Proton’s next C-segment sedan is in fact Italdesign-Giugiaro SpA.

Giugiaro (founded 1968) has designed a lot of vehicles in the past, including the Mk1 Volkswagen Scirocco (not the modern one that’s just launched in Malaysia). It even had a big part in the development of the R56 MINI. Here are some of Giugiaro’s recent work:

Ssangyong C200 Concept and Suzuki SX4

The Business Times report revealed that a clay model of the car already exists at the design house’s headquarters in Turin, Italy. It definitely has to be, considering the new Persona replacement car was previously mentioned to be out by 2012, after the Waja replacement in 2010 and the Perdana replacement in 2011.

The car will be engineered to meet tougher European and North American standards. Proton’s North American entry is still a hazy area at the moment but there was talk earlier this year that Detroit Electric would be helping with getting the cars registered with whatever authorities there are there. Not sure what happened with that whole project.

The Exora introduced new technologies in Protons that were not used before – more sensors for the airbag system and a Body Control Module. Datuk Syed Zainal says the new C-segment Persona replacement will implement these new features and add even more features to bring the new Proton up to international standards. Proton is currently in talks with various vendors on what can be implemented.

It is also in exploratory talks with some parties including a Chinese company (Europestar, SAIC-Roewe?) on collaborating on an SUV, and in talks via Lotus with a South Korean battery company and an electric motor supplier regarding EVs (what happened to Detroit Electric?).

400Nm of torque and a 6-speed manual transmission. I could be referring to the new BMW M3. Or the new manual Nissan Navara which has just been introduced in Malaysia, joining its 5-speed auto ‘Mother Trucker’ sibling which was launched first. The new cars are CBU imports from Nissan in Thailand.

Two versions of the 6-speeder is on sale. One is the basic Navara 2.5L 6M/T and another is the Navara 2.5L 6M/T SE. Nissan’s press release refers to the SE as the Safety Edition (what, is the non-SE unsafe? heh just kidding). This new “Safety Edition” also gets the necessary airbag software updates that resolves the bad crash test results in early 2008. The base 6M/T does not have the dual SRS front airbags, ABS brakes and EBD and the 6M/T SE model has.

The engine is the same powerful YD25DDTi 2.5 liter engine producing 174 PS and 403Nm of torque to be exact. So that’s actually 3Nm of rated peak torque more than the M3. Of course you can’t expect the same kind of shove as the powerband is narrow in a diesel and super wide in a high revving petrol BMW V8. The Navara M/T also gets the Shift-on-the-Fly 4WD system as the 5A/T, which allows 2WD/4WD shifting using a dial at speeds of less than 100km/h.

The list of equipment is a downgrade from the 5A/T LE. The xenon headlamps are replaced by halogens, the seats are fabric, the rearview mirrors lose their auto-dimming function, the CD changer is replaced with a single-CD, and the 6 speaker system has been downgraded to 4 speakers (they probably removed the 2 tweeters).

Some plastic bits in the interior which used to have a silver finish have been replaced by the same beige interior colour. On the outside, the door mirrors have their chrome finish replaced by body colour.

Nissan Navara 2.5L 6M/T – RM89,800.00
Nissan Navara 2.5L 6M/T SE – RM94,800.00
Nissan Navara 2.5L 5A/T LE – RM105,800.00