A fairly innocuous teaser of a rally car, posted on the Facebook page of motorsports photography outfit Chicane Media, turned out not to be innocuous at all – it’s a new rally car based on the Proton Iriz! Looking like a very serious machine, it’s been developed by Mellors Elliot Motorsports (MEM), the same British-based outfit that prepared the Satria Neo S2000 for Proton’s international rallying activities a few years ago.
Of what little we can see of the car, the modifications done are similar to those on the Satria Neo, including a deep front air dam, front air flics, twin bonnet vents and massive wheel arch flares. The massive lower grille has also been replaced by a simple mesh with the “Iriz” script painted on in big, bold letters.
In the comments, driver Oliver Mellors (son of MEM head Chris Mellors) is said to have mentioned that Proton was interested in building a rally car that met the FIA’s WRC R5 regulations, and this looks to be a culmination of that project. The classification would put this Iriz in the same league as the S2000 car.
Regulations stipulate that an R5 car would have to use a 1.6 litre turbocharged engine – with outputs capped using a 32 mm air restrictor – and use a five-speed gearbox. As such, the Iriz rally car could use the CamPro CFE turbocharged engine from the Exora, Prevé and Suprima S as a base. Its performance would be within spitting distance of the Satria Neo S2000, which uses a 2.0 litre version of the Waja 1.8X’s 1.8 litre Renault engine, matched to a five-speed Xtrac sequential gearbox.
Could Proton make a return to the international rallying arena? The R5 classification would certainly make it eligible for both the WRC-2 class of the World Rally Championship (WRC) and the Asia Pacific Rally Championship (APRC). Proton last competed in the precursor to WRC-2, the Production World Rally Championship (P-WRC), in 2012 and the APRC in 2013 – both with the Satria Neo S2000.
The Iriz is also likely to replace the Satria Neo S2000 in MEM’s own rallying activities – despite no longer running as a works Proton team, MEM still runs the car in rallies across the UK and Ireland, including the British Rally Championship.
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Kat public tak jual buat apa…. bodoh punya proton…
You wanna race on road ah?
Komen paling bangang, keta utk race nak jual kat public. Bangang level 99
Lu lg bebal. Ckp guna kpl lutut.
Nak buat apa jual kat public.ko nak bawak gi sogo ke?
Actually ko boleh je beli Neo S2000 tu dari MEM, $1,000,000. cheap if compare to WRC cars, around $7M
Abis ko fefeeling evo yg jual atas jalan tu sama macam evo wrc la? Bodoh punya komen.
BILA HATI DAH BUSUK DAN AKAL PENDEK BERBICARA
Kereta Rally nak jual kat public buat apa? Siapa yg bodoh ni sebenarnya?
Ford Fiesta RS WRC, Focus RS WRC, tak jual kat public. Peugeot 207 S2000 untuk Super 2000 series tak jual kat public. Citroen DS3 WRC, C4 WRC tak jual kat public. Toyota Auris S2000 tak jual kat public. Volkswagen Polo R WRC tak jual kat public.
Kereta untuk lumba memangla tak jual kat public!
Lotus solely sells cars for track purpose only in the US.
tu bukan dari proton, to dr MEM UK. yang buat Satria Neo S2000. Usaha sama dengan Proton R3. Lu cerita apa Rosdi
2 news about Proton in a day? That is too much for some people here, especially ioma and Sam Lorr.
You should’ve only write half a news about Proton Persona new 3rd brake light position and another half filled with the mechanic of Hafriz doing Hula…
What is new about Proton wasting money, wasting time, wasting public fund, not making money? That’s norm. The day Proton making money then it’s a news.
damn this car is gonna fly
I would say…go for it Proton! Get back our Flying Singh in action. Same goes to Perodua..make us proud.
An interesting news indeed. How about homologating the normal iriz with FIA too? Perodua, can we see the axia rallying like the viva, kelisa and kancil before?
I have no words
damm!
This is big news ! Does this mean Proton has plans to return to rally racing ?
Proton has been rallying since the 1980s. Initially, they used C21/2 Sagas, Iswaras and Wiras, all were heavily modified with MMC parts. Later, Proton directly rebadged Lancer Evos as their rally cars (the Proton PERT series), and these were piloted by Karamjit Singh himself. The Proton-Flying Singh duo had great success in rallying, even winning a few championships. I believe he still races for/ with Proton today.
Later, the Satria Neo S2000 came about towards the end of the last decade. It is by far and wide the most legendary Proton performance car to date (Satria GTi doesn’t factor, because it’s a production model). Top Gear even used two S2000 Satrias in a challenge once (The Stig drove one), and thanks to its achievements, regular Satria Neos were also exported to Japan where they were refitted by CUSCO as ‘junior’ rally cars. You can even find S2000 Satria Neos in several rally-themed video games.
Looking forward to future news on the Iriz R5. Think Ken Block… his mad Fiesta ? The Iriz has all the right ingredients.
The use of the lancer evo series first started with evo2, which is renamed the Proton WIRA turbo 4WD up till the evo3 series. later the evo5, 6 and 7 was rebadged as the Proton PERT. In the 90’s, the satria was also rallied internationally by USPD, getting 7th overall (if im not mistaken) in the 97 Safari Rally in Kenya. In the late 90’s there was a programme to rally a WRC spec Proton Putra in the world championship. The programme was killed before the car was rallied but the few WRC cars built is still with Proton.
Lets see full car design first, front looks ok
DAMN IT, I want them CFE Engines with 5 /6 speed manual gearbox available here. WTF man…
Rally and proton shouldnt ever appear on the same sentence together. This is just another money milking project from proton.
wow nice…proton brand can promote to world again since last few year satria s2000 is winner in APRC rally…good job!!!
Try.. if win..launch rally bred edition in malaysia.. same exact specs as rally cars minus those bits and pieces to make it legal on the road like removing roll cage and lower output and etc
nice. but still and always, teaser teaser teaser
After so many failure, while their cars not selling, some idiot boss started super syoik sendiri (SSS) project under Proton.
Proton financial state oredi in ICU, and still wanna go WRC and burn money????
Just like the local saying “Biar papa, janji bergaya”
i think you need to read whats posted properly.. car is built by mellors elliot motorsports. a 100% private entity that makes a living from building and selling rally cars for competition based on proton cars. they are no different than welch motorsports who built and ran the Persona in BTCC based on their own funding and sponsors.