April Fools Tale - The Proton Juara

First and foremost, the Proton Juara was not launched on April Fools Day. It was launched on the 22nd of July 2001 and was named Juara, or CHAMPION in Engish. The problem was the mini MPV was hardly a champion and it, and the Proton Tiara was a mega flop for Proton.

The Proton Juara was supposedly conceived in 1999 and was based on the Mitsubishi Town Box minivan, a Japan only minivan powered by a tiny 1.1liter 4 cylinder engine with a 4 speed automatic transmission. According to the official history, Proton brought it out to capitalize on the then burgeoning MPV market. In the early 2000s, Kia, via Naza, was having a boom period selling the Kia Carnival as the Naza Ria and later the Kia Carens as the Naza Citra. Renault was also selling the Espace and was surprisingly selling well. As was Toyota via the grey imported Toyota Wishes and Estimas. Honda was doing well with the Stream too. In fact, everybody was making profits from selling MPVs but Proton, in 1999 was high and dry.



Actually it was Proton's fault according to some tales which I heard years back from a chap who worked in Proton during that period. You see, during that era Proton was managed by Tengku Mahaleel, the CEO and he, basically was under the assumption that the Malaysian public was not into vans of any kind. They wanted sporty cars that looked good and that drove well. This is why if you folks remember, Proton came out with the Perdana V6 - the sporty executive large sedan, the Satria GTI - the sporty hot hatch and the Proton Waja - the one marketed as the Asian BMW (which to this day must have been marketed by people high on ganja or heroin as the car was no where close to a BMW made in 1975, and not 2000).

And what a shock it must have been to Proton, who thought Malaysians wanted sporty, Lotus ride & handing, as Malaysians went and bought vans or MPVs to ferry their families around. So somehow, out of the blue, or within a two year gestation period, they quickly brought out the Proton Juara to try gain some market share of the MPV market.

 Now this was really a sick joke to those that spent money on it as it was quite opinion dividing in terms of its looks (all square and chunky) and it was ridiculously underpowered. That 1.1liter engine coupled to a 4 speed automatic meant that if you loaded it up with 6 people it would struggle trying to maintain its cruising speed up a slightly steep gradient. It would climb Genting or Cameron Highlands. All cars can do so but 78PS and 103Nm meant it was laborious moving 1005kg plus say 500kg worth of people and their luggage. And Malaysian families are known to carry their kids, their parents, their maids all in one trip. Instead of a small family, most of them have whole batallions to lug around. And the Juara was never meant for that. Oh. It also costed RM50,000 or thereabouts. A lot of money those days especially as Malaysia was still struggling with the Asian Currency Crisis.

In Japan, the Town Box minivan (pictured above) was utilized as a small delivery van and no family in Japan had more than three kids due to cost of living (unlike here in Malaysia). The other fact was that no car was really used for more than a few years in Japan. It was like buying an electrical appliance over there unlike here in Malaysia where loans could take seven or more years to pay off. Now couple that fact with the severe power to weight ratio, the engine and also the gearbox was over stressed. This meant a new gearbox or a rebuilt engine more than most vans ever needed. In fact, if you ran a Nissan C22 Vanette, it would outlast the Juara by years.

I suppose somehow people knew that it was over stressed as by end 2001 production was halted. It resumed in 2002 but by 2003 everything ended as even with the revised pricing no one wanted one. Actually, no one actually wanted the Town Box over in Japan too as it only peaked in sales in 1999, selling more than 8,000 units. Aside from that it has always sold in the low three to five thousands throughout its 12 year run. This is extremely bad even for Japanese standards.

Now wasn't the choice of using the Juara a darn joke? Yes it was. And don't think Proton didn't learn anything from it. They did. Take a look at the Proton Exora - It is actually quite good. It isn't ugly, it isn't ridiculously underpowered, it can carry seven comfortably and it isn't ugly. Which in my opinion is why the Juara didn't sell well in the first place. I mean no one would really know whether the engine was that stressed in a period of one or two years. BUT people knew it was darn ugly. And that folks, is the actual reason why the Proton Juara didn't sell.