Archive for Cars

Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad expressed his disappointment on the AP policy due to the fact that no change had been made although several abuses in it’s issuance has been exposed.

“I’m disappointed, that’s all I can say, what else can I say because the policy remains unchanged. Why is it that almost 80 per cent of the APs are still given to the same people, the people that we have censured, whereas the price of the vehicles brought into the country had been under-declared to pay less tax,” he was quoted to say after a public lecture at USM, Penang.

Back in July 2005, the Customs and Excise department identified 6 companies underdeclaring vehicle prices in order to avoid tax. They have since been slapped with a 30-38% Profit and General Expenses tax on 34 of their models. (Refer to this post) For an offense that could be interpreted as cheating the government of income, perhaps Tun Dr. M expected more drastic punishment like having their APs revoked.

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It’s coming soon to the Malaysian market! Honda has set up a teaser site for the 2006 Honda Civic over here. There are some teaser images there, but I suppose all of you know how the new Honda Civic looks like already. The launch date is 9th March 2006.

My grubby mits are just shivering in anticipation for a test drive. Teaser photos are after the jump, or you could just check out their teaser site.

Click here to read the rest of 2006 Honda Civic launching on 9th March 2006

The last we heard our Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi say anything about Proton at all was back in October when he said Proton would sell stake to Volkswagen AG. The issue of management control was not mentioned though.

After a really long silence on the topic of our favourite national carmaker, the PM has finally said a few words on the matter. PM Abdullah Ahmad Badawi says Proton needs a foreign partnership to boost efficiency and car quality.

He said to reporters in Putrajaya that Proton is national property and a national icon and would never be sold off to foreigners. What Proton needs is a smart partnership iwth a win-win situation so it can gain advanced technologies to cope with other makes as Malaysia slowly opens up it’s automobile market.

Okay. What else is new?

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After testing their new turbocharged petrol engine on a modified BMW 5-series, BMW has officially announced their new turbocharged petrol engine, the N54 Bi-Turbo.

The BMW N54 Bi-Turbo is expected to be installed for the first time ever in the 2007 BMW 335i E90 sedan and the 2007 BMW 335ci E92 coupe. It uses 2 turbochargers, fed by 3 cylinders each in parallel arrangement to reduce turbo lag. The new cars that carry this engine will have the 335 insignia, which represents the 3.0 liter N54’s engine power equivalance to a 3.5 liter normally aspirated engine.

Performance stats are quoted to be 306hp and 400Nm of torque. Previous horsepower stimated figure was 330hp. As a comparison, the 3.0 liter normally aspirated inline-6 engine in the 330i makes around 260 horsepower. Also, the new N54 Bi-Turbo engine is 70kg lighter than BMW’s 4.0 liter V8 engine.

Related Post:
BMW 335i to get twin-turbocharged inline-6

Proton had attempted to enter the India market with talks with Hindustan Motors in 2003 but talks didn’t really amount to much. Now Proton has started talks again with Mahindra and Hindustan Motors for a retry at the market.

Proton MD Syed Zainal Abidin was reported to issue a statement to international media that Proton would re-look at China and India as the market in those two countries were too huge to ignore. Proton and Hindustan Motors has something in common - Mitsubishi as a technical partner.

The Democratic Action Party (DAP) secretary general Lim Guan Eng handed over a 20-question memorandum over to Proton corporate communications head Yusri Yusof on Friday at Proton’s HQ in Shah Alam. The questions were mainly in relation to Proton’s sale of MV Agusta SpA for only 1 Euro, Volkswagen’s failed alliance with Proton and Proton’s new co-operation with Mitsubishi.

In other Proton news, Bursa Malaysia CEO Yusli Mohamed Yusoff said on behalf of Bursa Malaysia that Proton has issued sufficient information on it’s sale of MV Agusta SpA and has fulfilled Bursa Malaysia’s disclosure requirements for listed companies. There are a few provisions for business decisions that require shareholder approval but the sale did not trigger any of them, as such Bursa Malaysia does not require anything else from Proton.

However, a spokesperson from the Securities Commission said the SC is looking into the matter as suggested by Tun Dr. Mahathir in his press statements, but no final decision has been made yet.

Source: AFX News, Bernama

Proton managing director Syed Zainal Abidin Syed Mohd Tahir has stated Proton is not selling the British sports car manufacturer Lotus, in reply to Tengku Mahaleel and Tun Dr. Mahathir’s offer to buy the company for 1 pound sterling in jest.

Syed Zainal said Proton’s future plans for the future will capitalise on the Lotus Group’s engineering strength, as well as areas like branding and training. He admitted Proton had not utilised Lotus to the desired extent so far, but Proton and Lotus officials met two weeks ago to discuss future collaborations. It is hoped that future collaborations would be done in a more structured and focused manner.

To address falling sales, Proton Edar CEO Datuk Maruan mentioned Proton would organise visits to the Proton Shah Alam plant to show potential customers how Protons are built, in order to restore faith in the national car manufacturer’s products.

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The Lifan Group, a Chinese motorcycle manufacturer has recently ventured into the car business, with their US$9,700 Lifan 520 sedan. A recent move has shown this is not just a one-off shot at making a quick buck, they are in it for the long haul. Yup, Lifan has actually purchased the Campo Largo engine plant in Brazil from DaimlerChrysler and BMW AG, who jointly own the factory.

Click here to read the rest of Lifan buys Tritec factory

These photos were taken during the Proton Street Shoot Out at Bukit Jalil recently. The Perodua Myvi was fitted with semi-slick tyres, and was doing a round-a-bout maneuver when suddenly the rear axle just snapped. Cause is unknown, but speculation is that maybe a mounting bolt gave way or the welding of the torsion beam wasn’t strong enough for driving conditions that require extreme maneuvers like the Street Shoot Out. These are just speculations.

Photos from hasadi78. Note that the car is modified, so the cause of the snap might be due to improper modification.

I posted on China’s various imitations of western and Japanese cars a long long time ago. One of the most blatant copies have been the Chevrolet Spark/Daewoo Matiz’s copy. Meet Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp’s Chevy QQ. It’s pretty hilarious really how they managed to transform Chevrolet’s pet name Chevy into Chery. The Chevrolet Spark is on sale here in Malaysia with an 800cc engine if I am not mistaken.

But do the imitations perform the same as the originals? Do Petaling Street Rolex watches last as long as the original? It depends on your luck really, but thankfully in the automotive world we have something called crasjh tests so we can at least measure a car’s safety performance.

Click here to read the rest of Chery QQ Crash Test