Bring into
consideration the Inspira's good looks, well-judged ride-and-handling,
ergonomical, spacious interior, and, lastly, the value-for-money proposition,
and Malaysians are looking at a desirable Proton, one that we would highly
recommend to anyone shopping for a C-segment, mid-size car.
Proton's
inputs on the Inspira were restricted to visual differentiation and suspension
tweaking, with no changes to the powertrain, though that has not stopped Proton
from claiming that they have added “value” to the Lancer base in the 17 months
taken to create the Inspira.
It may be
difficult to ascertain if the Inspira has a higher-quality interior than the
Lancer, as Proton claims, and no easier to determine if the visual updates to
the grille, bumpers and alloy wheels will appeal to a wider audience. But
Proton's tweaking of the suspension, conducted in-house by a 15-personnel team,
has indeed given the Inspira a noticeable edge over the Lancer in terms of
ride-and-handling.
Despite the
assertions from certain quarters that Proton has gone back to the old days of
merely rebadging Mitsubishi models, the Inspira makes financial and business
sense, requiring RM 250 million instead of RM 700 million to build and cutting
seven months off the normal two-year development cycle.
Going
forward, Proton assures that all of its limited resources will be spent on developing
core models like the next-generation Proton Persona and Proton Saga, while OEM
collaboration, a term preferred by Proton over rebadging, will only be
conducted for non-core models like the Inspira.
No comments:
Post a Comment