SMALL BUT BIG ON PERFORMANCE – PROTON’S ALL NEW SAVVY
National car manufacturer PROTON today introduced the Savvy, a five-door compact hatchback making its debut and intending to set a new benchmark in the competitive small car market segment.
The all-new Savvy is powered by a 1.2 litre engine and driven by a five-speed manual transmission, capable of delivering 74 brake horse power and a maximum speed of 170km/h, making it one of the speediest and most powerful vehicles in its class.
“We’d like to think of it as my first Lotus,” said PROTON Group Chief Executive Officer Tengku Tan Sri Mahaleel Tengku Ariff.
“That was certainly the design ideology from the start of the project. We wanted a small car that offers practicality, fuel economy, generous space and great all round performance. It’s not a sports car nor does it look like a Lotus but certain elements have been engineered into the car that’ll give you a taste of what it’s like to drive one of the world’s best handling vehicles. The results are outstanding.”
These elements involved engineering a new, stronger and more rigid chassis (platform) and bringing Lotus dynamics into a small car, resulting in a vehicle that is more superior in handling, safe, well balanced, responsive and has good power to weight ratio, all the necessary ingredients to making a powerful and enjoyable small package. The Savvy also has greater torsion and bending rigidity compared to previous Proton cars. It has also been tested and verified to be stronger than that of German and Italian marques respectively, that were used to benchmark in the development process. Structural integrity in the car, in terms of bending and torsion rigidity, is almost three times stronger than that of the Wira.
Lotus styling also helped to influence the vehicle’s sleek and stylish exterior projecting a young, spirited and energetic car. Lotus styling prevailed through to the interior of the car with its minimalist approach to creating a practical and sporty cabin. One unique and practical feature built into the car is the flat-folding rear seats for larger boot space.
Priced very competitively, the Savvy is available in the choice of three colours; STRATOS (Passion Blue), MIDNIGHT (Tranquility Black) and MAGMA (Chilli Red).
The Savvy is also designed to be the small-segment car for PROTON’s new generation of vehicles. PROTON had launched the GEN.2 early last year and is planning to launch two more vehicles within this financial year – one for the mass market and the other a niche vehicle.
In line with PROTON’s commitment to producing better and higher quality cars for the market, the Savvy is also the first made-in-Malaysia car to roll off the production line with TUV certification for quality. TUV not only certified the overall vehicle, but also helped to control the quality of production processes at PROTON vendors, and more importantly the components they supplied.
Internationally renowned TUV Rheinland Group is a global leader in compliance engineering, testing and quality registration services for domestic and foreign markets and engineers were engaged to give the Savvy and independent assessment of the overall vehicle’s quality.
“We’ve decided to call in the big boys where quality is concerned with PROTON’s new generation of vehicles. There will be no compromise on quality. This is an area that has repeatedly hurt the PROTON brand despite our very best efforts to produce good quality, reliable and dependable cars for the consumer.
“In the long term, TUV certification will underline the effectiveness of PROTON’s quality management system and its conformity with the relevant globally valid standards.”
The cars are available at all Proton Edar showrooms and sales outlets nationwide and a booking fee of RM1,000 can be made immediately with delivery of the first cars expected to be within the next one month. Prices range from RM40,523.25 for the basic model to RM43,714.00 for the top of the range Comfort model. You can pick up the car for as little as RM4073.25 downpayment
