Satria Neo R3 – High Performance Package Transforms the Neo
The Proton Satria Neo R3, developed by R3, Proton’s very own in house development team – R3, which stands for Race, Rally & Research, launched just before the F1 races in Sepang, is some car! Priced at RM115k, it warrants some serious thinking before one puts one dhobi mark onto a sales order. We got invited to do a very short test drive at Proton’s Test Track inside the Proton factory in Shah Alam.
In terms of looks, painted in British Racing Green, and kitted with a fierce-looking body kit, made up of a front air dam, side skirts and a rear spoiler, the Neo R3 is impressive. It looks fast just standing still, and should you decide that you are going to be an owner, there is absolutely nothing that you can do to add on to the Neo R3 that will make it look any better.
Cosmetics aside, the body kit should help in stabilizing the Neo R3 at high speeds – the front air dam will help to push air to the sides, and minimize the air going underneath the car, while the side skirts will do the same, and help create a semi-vacuum effect, working with the rear diffuser, also part of the body kit. I don’t think they did any wind tunnel testing, and there are no number values as to what the improvements are, but there should be at least some effect. In addition, there is a carbon fibre front bonnet.
I just got to drive the Neo R3 for about fiver or six kilometres, which included four laps around the test track, ( I got one lap more than the standard three laps allowed per media), and two laps around the slalom and braking test course. In terms of power, the claimed 145 horsepower pulls the Neo effortlessly from standstill to about 120 km/h in the short straight before I got to the first banked turn at the south end of the track, and I held this speed around the very tight turn, gunning it just after the apex, and the Neo quickly got up to around 170 km/h before I had to brake down to 130 again for the next banked turn, about 500 metres away, in this oval track.
The standard engine has been beefed up with a mild camshaft; the rest of the power comes from improved intake flow through a carbon fibre intake box, and improved exhaust gas flow through an extractor. Power delivery is quite linear, and smooth; there is no kick-in-the-butt feeling, and I suspect the actual test car may have had a few horses missing, possibly because the car, which was the actual one given to the Petronas F1 drivers, may have been put together as a rush job.
The five speed manual gearbox has a shortened final drive – a little bird told me that this is the box from the Mitsubishi Mivec Turbo – which has a 4.625 final drive ratio – it also happens to be the standard gearbox found in the Proton Exora, and now that the cat is out of the bag, second hand Exora gearboxes are going to become very popular.
The standard Satria Neo has always been a very good handling car – the Neo R3 is even better. With Ohlins and competition springs all round, the Neo R3 is almost race ready – the absorber and spring settings are on the hard side of firm, but soft and compliant enough to be used on the road on an everyday basis. The ride is firm, but not harsh, and the handling is very impressive. Taking it through the high speed slalom set up for us, the Neo R3 gets a thumbs up from me – it has very little body roll, and the car, helped by the low profile inched-up sports tyres on alloys, went through the cones without flinching. What impresses is that the set-up allows for inch-perfect wheel placement without any suggestion of over or under steer.
The huge Brembos at the front work very well too – stopping is great. The rear brakes are standard.
All things said, the Neo R3 is a great car – if you bought a standard car, and wanted to put together a package exactly the same as the Neo R3, you could probably do it, if you could find the exact parts, but it would cost about the same, or a little bit more. There is every likelihood the Neo R3 will be a collectible of sorts later on, as this is a very limited production run – so if you like it, go for it!
