Archive for Malaysian Makes

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A day or two after the Perodua Nautica’s teaser site went online, Perodua added two new puzzle pieces of the new 4WD SUV showing parts of the rear hatch and the front grille and bumper. Thanks to readers Hilmy and Suzanne for pointing this out.

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The new grille can be quite clearly seen here, so now we can probably mentally put together how the Perodua Nautica will look like. There are only two colours available - Medallion Grey which is probably shown in these teaser images or Majestic Black, which isn’t very hard to imagine.

Related Posts:
Perodua Nautica 4WD: official name for new Perodua SUV
Covered up Perodua Nautica 4WD spotted being transported on trailers
New Perodua MPV coming in September 2009
Perodua Nautica 4WD teaser site is up!

Founder and CEO of the Naza Group Tan Sri S.M. Nasimuddin S.M. Amin passed away this morning at 1.15am GMT+8 in Los Angeles, California where he was receiving treatment for lung cancer at a private hospital in Long Beach.

I extend my heartfelt condolences to Tan Sri’s family. Despite being the big man behind a large home-grown conglomerate that has provided many jobs, having met him briefly over dinner one day I found him to be very nice man and very down to earth.

Proton Vendors Association president Dr Wan Mohamed Wan Embong says automotive vendors in Malaysia needs to speed up mergers and acquisitions so that Proton vendors will be stronger and will be able to perform in-house design and development including costly engineering and testing, as small and medium vendors would probably not be able to afford such R&D.

Sometime last month, the government announced a RM400 million fund under the Automotive Industry Development Fund for financial assistance for Proton vendors to improve quality and production levels.

A story back in 2006 mentioned that Proton had 270 vendors at that time. Proton now still has over 200 suppliers, but only 140 of them are members of the Proton Vendors Association. Even back during those times, the efforts for consolidation had already begun, but the process seems to be taking a long time.

“It is slow because it is not a easy task to group the entrepreneurs into one, where they have to report to possibly a boss again. And the fact that when you want to be an entrepreneur you have to be independent,” Dr Wan Mohamed added.

Dr Wan Mohamed himself is involved in a consolidation of four vendors under a new company called Automotive Network Alliances which specialises in car interior trim and noise control products.

Related Posts:
Proton Vendors Association wants protection
Proton vendors urge government to go ahead with voluntary scrapping
Proton wants certified vendors
Proton vendors need to buck up!
RM400 million for Proton vendor development

Source

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Readers often send in artist’s impression of their favourite real or imaginary cars, and this one is a work by reader Zarul. He’s created a wallpaper which features his impression of how a Proton MPV could look like.

You will find another image after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of Reader Zarul’s Proton MPV Wallpaper

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The Proton Satria Neo already fills the “2-door fun car” segment in Proton’s model line-up, but what if Proton created a lightweight coupe from the Proton Saga chassis powered by a 1.6 liter Campro CPS engine?

Apparently something like this or other was what went through Theophilus Chin’s thoughts when he decided to come up with this artist’s impression of a Proton Putra replacement car, which he has decided to call the “Pooterror”.

The front of the artist’s impression Putra replacement concept takes cues from the recently launched Volkswagen Scirocco, the side and wheelbase from a Saga, and its rear end is from the Suzuki Kizashi 3.

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A teaser site for the Perodua Nautica 4WD is now up, and it gives us a sneak preview of some features of the upcoming Perodua Nautica 4WD, although key exterior design features like how the front grille, front bumper and rear bumper will look like remains hidden. What we can confirm from the silhouette of the car is that it will be a short wheelbase version of the Daihatsu Terios/Toyota Rush.

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The interior shows a clean white on black meter panel design, manual air conditioning (I had hoped for automatic climate control because of its premium price positioning and Japan CBU import status), and an integrated CD player as opposed to the Toyota Rush’s 1-DIN or 2-DIN CD player, depending on trim level.

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The headlamps from the original car have been retained, and the Perodua Nautica 4WD gets the projector lense variant. Only the top spec Toyota Rush has projector headlamps, while the low and mid-range models use reflector headlamps.

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An interior with a dark-colour scheme is used, and here we see fabric seats. The short wheelbase version of this car is a 5-seater.

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Here we see a 5-spoke alloy wheel design.

There is a counter on the teaser site which counts down 9 days and 10 hours to the Nautica’s launch as of today, so the expected launch date should be on the second Friday of next month, which is the 9th of May 2008.

Related Posts:
Perodua Nautica 4WD: official name for new Perodua SUV
Covered up Perodua Nautica 4WD spotted being transported on trailers
New Perodua MPV coming in September 2009

Proton Holdings Berhad and Edaran Otomobil Nasional Berhad is said to be in talks for a merger between EON and Proton’s own Proton Edar distribution arm.

This would create a single Proton distributor, which would reduce competition for Proton car sales as there would not be any competition between Edar and EON anymore.

EON does not just sell Proton cars in Malaysia. It also owns 48% of Mitsubishi Motors Malaysia Sdn Bhd, and sells Mitsubishi cars as well. EON subsidiaries also sell Volkswagen and Audi cars.

Late last month, there was a proposed voluntary withdrawal of EON from the Bursa Malaysia main board. HICOM Holdings Berhad which held 79.05% of EON at that time made a general offer to acquire the approximately 52 million shares it did not own at RM2.10 each. Delisting is expected to be completed by Q3 2008.

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UPDATE: Perodua Nautica 4WD - Click the link for launch images and specifications of the Perodua Nautica 4WD!

Perodua has officially unveiled the name of the new Perodua SUV: the Perodua Nautica 4WD. Shown above is Theophilus Chin’s artist impression of the little SUV which is based on the short wheelbase Daihatsu Terios. The long wheelbase version is also on sale in our local market in the form of the Toyota Rush.

The new Perodua Nautica 4WD will be a CBU import from Japan with Perodua badging and styling, though since the car will be a low volume unit there should not be any major changes with the design other than a minor grille change, as it would not be cost effective to do any major restyling with so little units expected to be sold.

Bookings are open from May 10th 2008 onwards. Also released are some official minor specs on the car - a 1.5 liter DVVT engine (likely the 3SZ-VE in the Avanza and Rush) and a 4WD drivetrain, unlike the Toyota Rush’s 2WD drivetrain. It comes in automatic transmission only and has two colour variant - Medallion Grey or Majestic Black.

Perodua will definitely get some flack for bringing in a fully imported CBU unit instead of doing the normal “national car manufacturer” thing and making it here.

Related Posts:
Covered up Perodua Nautica 4WD spotted being transported on trailers
New Perodua MPV coming in September 2009

The Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) will be introducing financial assistance schemes for Proton vendors to increase their quality and production levels, with an allocation of RM400 million from the government’s coffers under the Automotive Industry Development Fund.

“The ministry will work with Proton to ensure that this effort is successful and hopefully producers who have been appointed as vendors to Proton (when they get the assistance) will successfully see through their efforts. We will use the money to strengthen the selected Proton vendors and raise their standards to a much higher level. This is very important,” said MITI Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.

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Proton has launched the Proton Persona in the Brunei market, priced at BND$20,771 (RM47.636.50) for the 1.6 liter medium line manual and BND$22,495 (RM51,590.35) for the 1.6 liter medium line automatic.

It is available in seven colours, namely iridescent white, metal gray, tranquillity black, solid red, light gold, blueberry tea and solid white. Proton has been in Brunei since 1999, distributed by Worldwide Motor Sdn Bhd.