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.

2014 Malaysian F1 Results

#	Driver	Country	Team	Time	Gap	Points
1	Lewis Hamilton		Mercedes	1:45.390	1:40:25.974	2
2	Nico Rosberg		Mercedes	1:48.270	17.300	2
3	Sebastian Vettel		Red Bull	1:44.899	24.5	3
4	Fernando Alonso		Ferrari	1:45.663	35.9	3
5	Nico Hulkenberg		Force India	1:48.604	47.0	2
6	Jenson Button		McLaren	1:47.086	83.4	3
7	Felipe Massa		Williams	1:46.950	84.7	3
8	Valtteri Bottas		Williams	1:47.030	85.1	3
9	Kevin Magnussen		McLaren	1:49.665	108.8	2
10	Daniil Kvyat		Toro Rosso	1:50.986	135.7	3
11	Romain Grosjean		Lotus	1:49.006	137.8	4
12	Kimi Raikkonen		Ferrari	1:48.819	137.9	3
13	Kamui Kobayashi		Caterham	1:51.848	177.9	2
14	Marcus Ericsson		Caterham	1:51.624	229.5	3
15	Max Chilton		Marussia	1:48.964	229.6	3
R	Pastor Maldonado		Lotus	RETIRED	1 lap	1
R	Adrian Sutil		Sauber	RETIRED	4 laps	2
R	Daniel Ricciardo		Red Bull	RETIRED	9 laps	5
R	Jules Bianchi		Marussia	RETIRED	19 laps	2
R	Esteban Gutierrez		Sauber	RETIRED	33 laps	3
R	Jean-Eric Vergne		Toro Rosso	RETIRED	47 laps	4
R	Sergio Perez		Force India	RETIRED	47 laps	1

BMW Group DesignworksUSA designs new Siemens metro for Kuala Lumpur.

This bit of news is interesting for the people living in Klang Valley. The scheduled for operation in 2017 Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) system for the Klang Valley that is being constructed by Siemens will have coaches designed by BMW Group's Designworks USA. Automobile companies do have their hands in other forms of (non-road going) transports too

I have posted its details as well as the basic specification of the upcoming MRT services over on Motoring-malaysia.com.

Sunday Special: The Volkswagen Golf is 40

Yes. The Volkswagen Golf has gotten old. First launched a good forty years ago it has gone to be Europe's favourite smal car and those that aspiring Malaysians want to be seen in before they can afford Audi, BMW or Mercedes Benz. Anyway, here is a pictorial of all seven generations of the iconic, little (but not any more) hatchback.