Proton to pick up Subaru's mantle in the WRC?
Click above to view more of the Proton Satria Neo S2000 rally car
Before Subaru entered the World Rally Championship in the Nineties, it was little more than an obscure Asian automaker. Though its rallying efforts helped to put it on the map, Subaru has decided to ditch the WRC this season. But another little-known Asian automaker may be ready to pick up what Subaru is throwing away. That company is Malaysian automaker Proton. And it's not as ridiculous as you may think.
The state-owned enterprise has a strong customer base in Asia, and is the largest automaker in the Muslim world. Proton also owns Lotus, which brings the parent company a considerably performance engineering knowledge base to tap into. Subaru's former partner Prodrive is looking for a new client. And to cap things off, now unemployed former champion Petter Solberg (who used to drive for Subaru), is now rumored to be signing on to Proton's rally team. Together with motorsport garage MEM, Proton has been busy preparing an S2000-spec rally car based on its Satria Neo hatchback for the lower-level Intercontinental Rally Championship, and if plans to switch the WRC to a modified "S2000+" formula come through, it could pave the way for Proton to mount an assault on the WRC by 2010, as the brand is eager to expand outside its regional market and establish itself in Europe.
[Source: Autosport | images via paultan.org]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
bill 11:58AM (1/20/2009)
I really like the looks of this one. Too bad it won't be for sale here in the U.S. with an Acura Type-R motor stuffed in the front end. Four wheel drive is nice, but I would be happy with front wheel drive and the Type-R motor.
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tankd0g 3:06PM (1/20/2009)
That would be awesome. Now get Hyundai back in there, or even KIA.
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yyyeeeaaahhh 12:04PM (1/20/2009)
You could drive a Proton Wira in the good old Rally Championship !
If only Proton coming back to WRC meant Rally Championship coming back to PC...
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john.paulsson 2:03PM (1/20/2009)
Haha, I'm glad I'm not the only one remembering Rally Championship! I practically grew up with it. I remember the Wira was one of the best cars in the game, second only to the Lancer Evo and the Impreza.
The next game in the series, International Rally Championship, was pretty descent but not really the same.
BoxerFanatic 12:53PM (1/20/2009)
It is sad.
An FWD econo-box sardine can with a PTO trying to drive the rear wheels meets the new "requirements" better than a tried, true, and competent 3-differential AWD, with a kickin' turbocharged boxer engine.
How about opening up the regulations so that people with actually good hardware can race, rather than being a "spec" class series.
I know Subaru claims economic issues, which may be a bit of a reason... but with reputation on the line, I can't help but think that it is more inherent than that, and FWD-biased transverse-engined favoring rules put Subaru out in the cold, and Subaru not wanting to change their superior engineering just for the rulebook. So bollocks to WRC.
Subaru didn't leave WRC, WRC left Subaru. I'll stick with Subaru, and actual expertise, rather than some front-biased wannabe. I know what my Subaru is capable of.
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davet 2:30PM (1/20/2009)
Well, it is times like these that allow fresh faces in. A lot of us still miss Group B, 20+ years on, but it was the death of Group B (more precisely, that Audi, Peugeot, eventually Lancia quit in disgust) that gave the Subarus and Mitsubishis room to grow and become what they are now. I still miss Group B, I will miss Subaru, and I welcome Proton. Rallying gave us the Stratos, the Quattro, the Delta S4, the Evo, the WRX -- maybe it will give us a Proton we'll be fighting in line over. And that can only be a good thing..
BoxerFanatic 3:44PM (1/20/2009)
Making regulations MORE specific, and putting variation out in the cold is not the way to go. And it sounds like alienation of manufacturers is not new to WRC.
If they need more classes, then run more classes, with some sort of statistical stratification to come up with championship standing among all the classes.
But restricting everyone down to inline transverse 4 cylinders, with transverse and PTO/Clutch driven AWD, like most converted transverse cars have... is antithetical to open sportsmanship.
ruling superiority out of the races is not good sportsmanship, even if it allows previous non-competitors to compete.
davet 5:59PM (1/20/2009)
BF @ 344: I completely agree, it's a stupid thing to do. I don't follow rallying as much now as in the Group B days -- the step down from then to even now isn't so much a step as a cliff, so maybe that's made me a bit philosophical. We'll never see a modern Delta S4 or 205T16 because if the performance levels got close you can bet that the FIA would change the rules. But I'm trying to look on the bright side. 20 years ago Subaru (especially) and Mitsubishi made cars that appealed only to the fringe, now they make world class performance cars. Everybody loves the Mazda3 for its chassis and suspension -- taken from the rally-bred Focus. So yeah, the rule changes really suck. But at least we might get a new face or two -- and don't blame Proton for the changes.
LySiNe 1:13PM (1/20/2009)
Heh, we used to joke that if you scratched the paint off a Proton you would see the paint from a Milo tin underneath. For the most part the cars are alright, unfortunately niggling little things will break in the first year. Most often the electronics, like power windows.
The Wira, Satria, and Putra were late generation Mitsubishi's so were great for making Franken Evo's out of em. It was common to see em with Evo III and Evo IV parts bolted on with a 4WD conversion. The Proton Pert team used an EVO 7 the entire way.
The current Gen-2 is not a bad car, build quality is much improved. I rode in one after they first came out. So I expect the Satria Neo to be of the same quality. SInce they started using the Campro engines, they should be more reliable machines, but highly underpowered. 110 bhp, 127bhp for the VTEC/VVTi model, and a projected 150bhp for a forced induction model. What's the use? If Lotus knew how to make proper engines, we wouldn't see the 2ZZ-GE in the Exige, or the 2GR-FE in the Evora.
They should have leveraged their proper Mitsubishi heritage and made a Satria GTI with AWD and a near 300bhp engine a long time ago, with the "Lotus Tuned Suspension" Instead industrious Malaysians just went and did a parts swap themselves from donor Evo's.
Perhaps this S2000 spec Satria Neo is a sign of good things to come... I hope so.
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Rick 10:27AM (1/21/2009)
Do they make torpedos? I just can't say that name without snickering.
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meGrimlock 4:16PM (1/21/2009)
Yay, Malaysia!
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