Archive for Malaysian Makes

The piece of news was about something else, but I noticed something strange…

Click here to read the rest of No Lotus Involvement in Proton New Engine?

Volkswagen and Proton are still in talks and it could end up with Volkswagen AG buying as much as 30% stake in Proton, or nothing at all.

Volkswagen and Khazanah Nasional officials met at the Proton Holdings Bhd HQ yesterday to discuss the matter.

Proton officials said that if there is no decision within a few days talk would be called off.

The deal is said to be involve MYR1.65 billion exchanging hands if it goes through. That translates to about RM10 per share. Proton shares were worth RM9.25 on the market on Thursday.

It’s said that the terms of the sale will involve Volkswagen AG gaining management control of the company.

Foreign CEO anyone?

Source: The Star, Yahoo News

Hopes of Malaysians for a foreign CEO to steer Proton into a better era is dashed with this statement which our PM gave to Malaysian press during his 3-day visit to South Africa.

On Tengku Mahaleel’s successor, Abdullah said that the new CEO would be experienced and one who had served about 12 years with Proton.

“We’ll see who’s going to be the CEO. It will not be a foreigner. Don’t start speculating,” he said when asked to comment on talks that a foreigner might be appointed to replace Tengku Mahaleel.

Click here to read the rest of Badawi: “Proton CEO to be Malaysian”

He has absolutely no mercy! Click more to start playing the video.

Click here to read the rest of Jeremy Clarkson on the Proton Savvy

The Perodua Myvi is selling like hotcakes! Sales figures are at a mind-blowing average of 10,188 units a month, exceeding the original monthly target of 4800 units.

Myvi sales have hit 40,751 units on July 6th, a number achieved in only about 3 months since April.

This is despite of several problems with the car such as the dent on the bonnet and the problem with the rear drum brake. Despite the problem, Perodua was wise to notify Myvi owners to come in for a check-up right away.

Such is the power of having the platform based on a Toyota/Daihatsu platform. The reliability reputation rubs off a bit onto the Myvi.

You can see it on the comments of my own blog. Even when I posted about the brake defect, hordes of Myvi lovers came and defended Perodua, and praising it for acting so quickly. If a Proton had such problems, I think it would be normal for Proton service center personnel to shrug it off with a “Biasalah… Proton!”

Proton, please learn from your brothers at Perodua. This is what you can achieve if you give the rakyat what it wants. A reliable, economical car with the latest safety features and equipment.

The rakyat does not want state of the art clutchless manual gearboxes. It wants a comfortable car to drive to work daily, and at the same time fit the whole family comfortably for weekend trips. And the car has to be affordable. Buckle up Proton!

Source: The Edge Daily

It seems that the new sports car we’ve been seeing around is not a Proton but a Lotus Europa.

Click here to read the rest of Proton Ultimate - Lotus Europa?

A pretty good Photoshop showing how the Proton Perdana replacement model based on an extended Volkswagen Passat platform could look like. This artist’s impression was done by a talented guy named Theophilus.

The grill follows the same wau concept which Proton has been using for the Gen2 and the Savvy.

The base car is a Skoda Superb which is also based on an extended Passat platform. Pleasing to the eye for people who drool over the Audi A4 but can’t afford one.

It’s not known whether the Perdana replacement model would be using a higher displacement Campro engine or a Volkswagen engine.

Looking at the way Proton is introducing their new models, Proton has been focusing on replacements instead of improvements. What does this imply? The previous model was not good so they had to junk it and replace it?

I think it’s a good idea to continue with the Proton Perdana name as the name still carries a bit of prestige unlike the other Proton model names which have been tarnished by horrible QC. However, Proton seems to want to use English names instead for the ease of exporting.

Click here to read the rest of Perdana Replacement Model Photoshop

These are shots of the Satria Replacement Models being filled up at an ESSO petrol station. This could have been a good opportunity for anyone to grab as many spy shots are they could because the cars had to be stationary for their fuel tanks to be refilled.

There were two units of the Satria Replacement Model refilling their tanks. According to blog reader comments on my previous entries, it looks like road tests are becoming more and more frequent and easy to spot. The car should be ready to launch in a while but I’ve heard that Proton is pushing it to Chinese New Year intentionally to take advantage of a sales spike.

You can click the thumbnails for an enlarged version.

Nice side profile, although a little tall. There are discs brakes front and back. I think what we’ve feared most is going to come true. Those dodgy bling bling rims are going to come stock with the car. Honestly Proton, I’d recommend you to go for a design like the Advanti Racing rims that Race Rally Research are using on their R3 cars. The ride height looks pretty low.

If you look inside the car properly, you can see that the door panel for the left-hand door is in cream, as well as the top of the dashboard in front of the car. So I think it’s safe to assume the interior of the car will have light colours like cream as the dominant look.

Too bad there are no shots of the interior. I think we’ve seen almost every angle of the car already except the interior. A few people have commented on the previous spyshot posts that the interior is identical to the Gen2’s, like the way the Satria’s interior is the same as the Wira’s and Putra’s. That would make it a bit boring wouldn’t it?

There is no third brake light on the bumper, but those are reflectors. The rear bumper design accomodates a groove for the exhaust pipe to come out through. The spoiler is something like the Satria GTi design. Overall, very nice except for the rims which I think are totally off.

I wanted to go to DreamCarsAsia to get photos of the Gen2 R3 prototype but as I did not have a camera, couldn’t do anything. Autoworld has some photos here. Looks hot.

500 units of the Proton Gen2 R3 will be built, an increase over the 150 unit availability of the Proton Satria R3. Unlike the Satria R3 which carries over the bodykit from the Satria GTi, the Proton Gen2 R3 will have a redesigned bodykit. Looks pretty good, and it comes with the trademark RaceRallyResearch Advanti Racing rims. I just love that design. Thin, five spoke rims are my favourite.

More updates on the stats once I get hold of information, but for the meantime check out Autoworld’s article here.

Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, or Ku Li bashes Proton in this unmarked video interview on 9th July 2005.

He says that Malaysia has no capacity to make cars. This is one case where dreams cannot fuel reality. He mentions UK’s failure with Rover and Australia’s supposed failure with Holden. I disagree. Holden was always part of General Motors from the very beginning. Just that it once made its own cars, but now just mostly does badge reengineering to achieve economies of scale.

He mentions Fiat is also having trouble. Huh? Fiat just celebrated it’s 106th birthday on 11th June. They look fine to me.

Ku Li attributes Proton’s failure to the car market being determined by the giant cartels of the automotive industry. The huge Japanese, American and German car companies total control of the market makes it hard for anyone new to break in.

He gives some history on how Proton came about. I am not sure if its true. Apparently Mitsubishi approached Taiwan to propose to a company be setup there, doing Mitsubishi badge re-engineering. They rejected, so they came to Dr. Mahathir and he accepted the idea.

However, “Proton tak terdaya maju“, he says.

In Rawang, Kuantan, Klang, tens of thousands of unsold Protons are left to rot in stockyards. More and more finance companies are giving 100% loans to Protons. 9 year durations. By the end of 9 years, he comments, the financed Proton would be worth nothing.

He mentioned something which he himself admits is unconfirmed though. He says in foreign markets, Protons are hard or expensive to insure because of it’s crappy safety features. Really? I thought the Waja scored a 3 in European NCAP crash tests? Hmm…

Most of his bashing is to do with the Mitsubishi era of Proton. Nothing about the new batch of cars. Hmm…

Anyway, watch the video yourselves. I have posted it up here for viewing.

Video: Ku Li: “Proton Tak Terdaya Maju”

Edit: I found that the video was posted here before me, so I assume that’s the source of the video. If otherwise, please leave a comment to correct me and I will edit my post to credit the proper source.

For those who don’t know who Tengku Razaleigh is, Google or Wikipedia is your best friend.