The name of Proton’s P3-21A was officially confirmed
yesterday, and the date of its arrival has also been mentioned – the
Prevé is set to be launched by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak
on April 16.
Ahead of the car’s premiere, Proton invited the media to a preview
and test drive session with the car yesterday in Putrajaya. Photography
wasn’t allowed, so we don’t have photos of the Prevé aside from what you
see here, which is a selection of highlight shots provided by Proton.
The test drive route was comprehensive enough though, spanning 157 km
in total, with both the normally-aspirated IAFM and turbocharged CFE
variants driven, so both Anthony and I gained a fair bit of input about
the car, which you’ll read about later in the story, but first, other
aspects about the Prevé.
Examining the proof a little closer
The Prevé is built on the P2 platform, which is currently used by the
Exora. This makes the P2 platform the base in which all larger-sized
Protons will be built on. It will also be used for the Exora
replacement, code named P6-XXA, due about five years down the road. As
for B-segment cars, Proton will be utilising the P1 platform, which is
yet to be revealed.
At the preview, Proton revealed its plans in other cars, based on
these two platforms – there’s the P3-22A, a hatchback that’s next on the
list, as well as the P3-30A, P3-31A and P3-32A.
So, if you add in the Prevé and the P6-XXA to the list, you’ll get
six cars in total. It’s unclear as to how the other four will shape up,
but the streamline to have two platforms and six products will be
achieved by 2014.
Meanwhile, the Prevé will enter the scene not as a Persona
replacement, as earlier thought, but placed between the Inspira and the
Persona, at least in the immediate term.
To ease segmentation and offer clear differentiation, the Persona
will now only be available in its B-Line entry-level specification,
ahead of its retirement from the Proton model lineup in about a year and
a half from now. Meanwhile, the Inspira 1.8 litre variants will be
dropped, though a 2.0 litre manual version is set to join the 2.0 litre
CVT in the Inspira lineup.
The Prevé will come in three variant forms, with two engine
permutations and three transmissions, and indicative prices are from
RM62k to RM75k, as mentioned previously. The two engines are the IAFM+
and the CFE, both 1.6 litre powerplants, and a five-speed Getrag manual
is joined by two Punch CVT variations, the VT2 and VT3.
The CFE, to be seen in the High-Line version, comes with a
low-pressure turbocharger that delivers 138 hp at 5,000 rpm and 205 Nm
between 2,000 – 4,000 rpm. The engine is mated to a seven-speed CVT
Punch gearbox, the VT3, dubbed the ProTronic.
Figures include a 0-100 km/h time of 9.6 seconds and a maximum top
speed of 200 km/h. As for fuel consumption, the CFE gets 8.2 litres per
100km. In all, the numbers that the 1.6 litre CFE generates is said to
be similar to that of a 2.0 litre N/A engine.
As for the IAFM+, the mill equips the two M-Line versions of the car,
one with the five-speed Getrag manual and the other, a six-speed CVT,
in this case the VT2. A thing to note here: the engine and gearbox is
the same as seen in the Saga FLX SE, but retuned for the Prevé (no
output figures were given at the preview, but it should be the 108 hp as
seen on the FLX). Even the accelerator pedal is tweaked to make the
best out of the powertrain and drivetrain.
A quick aside on why there are two variations of the Punch CVT box.
Essentially, the VT3 transmission is a derivative of the VT2 – both
share the same package, but the VT3 is capable of higher maximum input
torques (215 Nm as opposed to the VT2‘s 186 Nm).
Currently, the IAFM+ engine is tuned for Euro 4 emissions, and the
CFE with CVT is good for Euro 5 emissions. Now, you may think that the
Malaysian government has not enforced emission regulations, so why
bother. Call it future-proofing, although everyone else has arrived
earlier. Already, Thailand is on the verge of starting its eco-car
program that gives all sorts of tax breaks to cars that have low fuel
consumption and low CO2 emissions. Proton is looking at penetrating the
Thai market, hence the readiness of more efficient offerings.
Indeed, Proton says that with this car, it has taken its standard
operating procedures, shaken it and turned it on its head. Two notable
processes, among many others, have been implemented: simultaneous
engineering and early vendor involvement. Proton claims that it has
already nipped many problems in the bud. It is something they
desperately and urgently need to get right.
The point is, Proton has a different goal, and is no longer content
with making cars that are just ‘good enough’ for Malaysians, but
something with a far more global outreach. The term ‘domestic market’ to
Proton now means the whole of ASEAN, specifically, Thailand and
Indonesia. And this ‘rethinking’ starts with the Proton Prevé.
As we already know, the Prevé will be Proton’s first global car. The
first launch will happen in Malaysia, which is obvious. Three months
down the road, Thailand and Indonesia will be getting the car, and the
Aussies will see the Prevé a few months after that. While right-hand
drive cars are the immediate focal point, a left-hand drive version is
on the cards, aimed at the Middle-Eastern market.
One of the major changes done is how the car is manufactured. The
Prevé’s body structure incorporates Hot Press Forming (HPF) tensile
parts, which ensures better torsional body rigidity without incurring
the penalty of extra weight. The Prevé measures in at 19,000 Nm/degree,
which is pretty stiff.
In total, there are 12 HPF parts in the car, strategically placed at
crucial points and centered around the cabin to reinforce the passenger
cell to improve occupant safety; the company even has a snazzy acronym
for it – RESS, which stands for Reinforced Safety Structure.
Still on safety, the Prevé’s top shelf variant comes with four
airbags, while the two M-Line units will feature two airbags.
Interestingly, at the preview, Proton MD Datuk Seri Syed Zainal Abidin
mentioned that the car has been designed to hold up to six airbags. As
for crash test safety, the Prevé will be tested based on Australian NCAP
specifications, although no results have been announced yet.
Aside from ABS, which is standard across the range, the High-line
Prevé will offer Electronic Stability Control. The system was tested
extensively in Australia, where three test mules and three
pre-production cars were driven on various road conditions to find the
optimum delivery package.
The promise is a less intrusive system, which progressively nudges
things in terms of assist – it will first trim off the yaw and the roll
of the car before sawing off the speed, which is its last option.
We were told that you can turn the ESC off on the car. Hold the
switch button for three seconds and you’re driving without tethers.
Almost. Even with the ESC set to off, the system will turn itself on
once the speed goes past 150 km/h and when you brake, and will turn
itself off once again when you you drive below said speed and off the
brakes.
Speaking about brakes, Proton claims that the Prevé has the best
braking distance among its competitors, stopping in 36.8 metres from
100–0 km/h. The three benchmark segment competitors do the same in 37.6,
41.2 and 51.9 metres, in case you’re wondering.
The suspension system consists of MacPherson struts for the front and
a multi-link with stabiliser bar for the rear. Proton looked to the
Civic and Focus as a benchmark for the Prevé’s handling, and the car
borrows a bit of inspiration from the Focus’ Control Blade rear, with a
hybridised version of things known as a knuckle blade. As for its ride,
Proton looked to Germany – BMW and Mercedes – for inspiration. Again,
more on that later.
What’s also interesting is the fact that the suspension setup has
been developed together with the tyre that is worn by the Prevé, in this
case a 205/55 series GT Radial featuring a new silica compound and
offering the promise of low rolling resistance but good grip. The Prevé
wears 16-inch wheels across the range.
A last technical aside, with the choice of traditional hydraulic
power steering for the car – Proton has stuck to the tried and tested,
saying that its unfamiliar with electronic power steering as yet and
would want to put out a product that they have little knowledge on.
You’ll see it eventually, once things are sorted out in how its possible
to offer all the advantages of an electronic power steering with most
of the feel and feedback of a hydraulic-based system.
In terms of placement, Proton is gunning for a piece of the C-segment
pie, and puts the Honda Civic 1.8 and Toyota Altis 2.0 in its
gun-sights, and the Kia Forte 1.6 is also in that mix (in development,
the outgoing C307 Ford Focus sedan was also benchmarked). Already, test
numbers have shown that the Prevé out-paces and out-brakes its
competitors.
It’s also playing up the interior space card – Proton says that with
930 mm in front and 815 mm at the back, the car offers the best leg room
in its class, and for luggage space has a boot volume of 508 litres.
Indeed, with all this, and allied to offering more equipment than its
main competition, the company believes that the Prevé gives good value
for money.
One last thing to chew on, it has been revealed that the Prevé has
one last card up it sleeves, and it’ll be made known during the launch.
The Preve is in the pudding
Chris says:
I’ll start my preview at the back seat of the Prevé CFE, and I have to
say that it’s a rather comfortable place to be. Definitely, there’s
plenty of legroom for someone that is 5’10”, with enough headroom to
clear.
The shoulder room wasn’t too bad as well. It certainly didn’t feel
like the car was caving in around me. Importantly, the touch points of
the car – like the door armrest – didn’t feel like it was procured for a
song. I didn’t mind the quality of the materials of the door card; the
rough bit is placed out of sight and the one that you’ll frequently look
at is textured and soft enough to rest my head on it.
I expected the ride to be soft and bouncy, but instead experienced
the total opposite. It rode towards the firmer side, much like how –
dare I say – continental cars are setup. But unlike some of the European
cars that crash into the road every time a bump or a hole happens, the
spring and dampers dissipated the shocks with top marks. It was
comfortable enough that I started to doze off when my turn at the wheel
was called.
I got into the hot seat and immediately felt the want for more space,
primarily in the foot well area, where my left knee seemed to be
jostling for room with the centre console. Guess who won.
It could also stem from the fact that my legs are bent more than
usual because one notch to the back and my arms would not be in in their
ideal driving position. Even if I did move back and adjust my back
rest, I would be sitting in a too-upright position. Sorry, that doesn’t
work for me either. So there was this constant debate in my head if I
should slide the seat back and try to get used to the arm’s length.
Adding a telescopic function to the steering wheel would have helped the
situation. End of rant.
Unlike Anthony, I wasn‘t too big on the design of the dashboard and
the centre console; it looks rather flat to me. I also thought that the
buttons and knobs could have been designed better to fill up the blanks.
Time to go and the Prevé peeled off the line without drama. It felt
quick considering it has a rubber band for a transmission. It also
responded quickly to the accelerator pedal and automatically kicked down
when I pushed the pedal closer to the floor. The acceleration was as
smooth as cream on an ice blended coffee.
There was something that I did not notice and Proton gets a huge pat
in the back for it – it was the noise levels, or lack of it. Proton must
have packed the Prevé with so much insulation that the volume of the
road, wind and the CVT-whine have been lowered to near mute. I peeked at
the speedometer and got caught off guard – the Prevé managed to remain
hushed even when driving over the speed limit. Nice sorcery, this.
Another characteristic that I found impressive was the handling.
Proton has got this one right on the mark. The increased rigidity of the
body helped so much in making the car track flat around the corners. I
could feel the amount of grip and how much I could still push before
impending break happened.
The steering was responsive and accurate, although I thought the
steering needed a bit more weight. Still, it was all too easy to attack
the corners and come out champ. The seat also had a hand in this. It
held my body firmly, so that I didn’t need to fight the physical forces
to keep myself in place.
Next, I got to test the Prevé equipped with the 1.6 litre IAFM+ with
the six-speed CVT. Maybe I was spoiled by urgency of the turbocharged
engine, but the normally-aspirated version felt slow.
It wasn’t helped by the fact that when I depressed the accelerator
further, the noise that was delightfully missing in the Prevé CFE was
unhappily found in the Prevé IAFM+. Forced as such, the engine roar and
the CVT whine was loud, and the only solution that I could find was to
let the car come to speed on its own. Clearly, some more work is needed
on this front.
Ride and handling in the Prevé IAFM+ was similar to that of the
turbocharged variant, so at least there was some consolation as I
returned the car back to home base.
There was a mixed bag of feelings with the Prevé. The overall package
is sound, the features and equipment are value for money, but it is the
small nagging things that still bug. As a package, the Prevé is
impressive enough, but based on the short drive, that only extends to
the CFE variant.
Anthony says:
I started out in the CFE version of the car, and first impressions
upon getting in were positive enough – I found the overall dashboard
layout very appealing on the eye, despite its rather conventional
styling.
As far as interior colour schemes go, the turbo variant’s mix of
black, dark grey and silver accents, replete with a gloss grey faux wood
grain relief panel, is a pleasing enough composition. On the IAFM+
variant the grey is a lighter shade, and the contrast panel is a
brownish-gold shade, but the surface texture on it is less visually
impressive and doesn’t look like its hard-wearing.
Some fitment gaps and rough spots were evident, but to be fair the
cars we were in were all pre-production units, so it’ll be interesting
to see if tolerances get better for the series production vehicles.
In general, switchgear operation is ergonomically sound, the
silver-coloured paddle shifters on the CFE in particular offering ease
of reach and good tactile feel in use. As for the function buttons
flanking the audio head unit on the centre stack, no issues with the
grouping intuition or feel, but perhaps more use could have been made of
the available deployment area.
The cruise control stalk, located at the lower right hand side behind
the steering wheel rim, may seem a bit out of place, but activation and
operation is an easy enough process – press the button on the end of
the stalk, pull the lever down and you’re in cruise mode.
About the only main minus point, at least where I’m concerned, is
with the ergonomics of the shifter on the CVTs. The movement of the
stick to and fro between sport and drive modes could be smoother, and
the gearshift knob looks more function than form; it has a painted
silver top, and its angled design means that the surface will inevitably
be a magnet for scratches (from rings and the like).
Elsewhere, the front seats offer good, firm support. Points too for
the choice of fabric material, which looks quite premium and good to the
touch. I managed to climb in the back seat in the full preview car
earlier in the day, and the rear offers good scope in terms of space,
both legroom and headroom wise; the curvature of the roof line also
affords decent headroom perception to the door/C-pillar.
Speaking of the full preview car (the test mules were all still
disguised), the lines of the car, especially at the rear, have been
softened for the series production model compared to the full-scale clay
sampler previewed to a small focus group of motoring writers a couple
of years ago, of which I was a part of.
Then, the initial lines of the rear were inherently tauter and
sharper, and closer to the Tuah concept in profile. I rather liked the
original intent, but the finished article works well enough, I suppose. I
do have some reservations about the inner section of the tail lamp
cluster, the one that sits on the boot – it’d have looked cleaner in
terms of integration shaped and sized accordingly through to the outer
part. You tell me when you eventually see the car if that’s so.
As far as the CFE goes, it’s not an outright stonker in terms of
off-the-line pace, but there’s enough poke to keep most happy, and I
liked the midband response coming off the car. The problem is the
association with the term – turbo equates to greyhound for many. If you
take it for what it is, a RM75k family-oriented sedan, then the
perspective shouldn’t be on absolute pace but usable pull, and the CFE
has enough of that.
In terms of running speeds, the CFE Prevé will get to 200 km/h, and
while it takes some time to get there in the final fifth of the
equation, hauling it to the 150 km/h region is an easily repeatable
affair, accomplished without huffing and puffing. The Punch VT3 does
well enough, considering its operational characteristics – on the CFE
you do detect the familiar whine associated with the transmission, but
nothing that becomes too intrusive.
A bit on the Sport mode and its RPM range association – on the CFE,
there’s about a 1,000 rpm difference at 160 km/h between drive and sport
mode (3,400 compared to 4,400 rpm) on the VT3 box, while on the IAFM+’s
VT2 tranny there’s a 500 rpm difference in between the two modes. And
the IAFM+/VT2 combination won’t go past 5,000 rpm, no matter how long
you floor the pedal; the CFE nudges nearer the 5,300-5,400 rpm mark or
so on full acceleration before shifting up.
Going into the normally-aspirated 1.6 after the CFE meant retuning
expectations, and truth be told, it feels underpowered. Still, part of
that perception about a car lacking power is also reinforced by the
point that the stiffer the car is, the more noticeable the apparent lack
of power becomes, and the Preve is plenty stiff.
What I found more disconcerting was the lack of powertrain refinement
vis-a-vis the CFE – the IAFM+ is a more raucous proposition, certainly a
far zingier one when pushed to its higher limits. If it can be made
smoother, without sounding like it wants to tear its hair – and yours –
out each time you stand heavy on the pedal, it’ll go a long way.
Plenty of appeal in the hydraulic steering’s weight though (I thought
it was heavy enough, as opposed to Chris’ view on it), as well as its
off-centre feel, evident on both variants; the rack also feels quick,
and I was told that it’s the fastest yet in the company’s stable.
Essentially, it’s the same as that in the Exora, but redone with revised
ratios and level of assist. As for the wheel itself, a good outing as
far as handling ergonomics go.
Quite possibly, the strongest aspect of the car is in its ride and
handling, which in short is nothing less than impeccable for an offering
in this price and class segment, indeed, even a few notches above.
The contribution of the chassis is evident, and allied to a
well-tailored suspension, offers a car that feels keen but ably planted
at high running speeds – the CFE Prevé chugged along at 200 km/h and
never once felt skittish or nervous. The IAFM+ gets to 180 km/h or so
before running out of puff, but offers everything its more muscular
sibling does in terms of ride and handling behaviour.
Trim things down and tackle corners, and it’s an ace too, tracking
very nicely and inspiring driver confidence into the twisties. Push into
a sweeper, go on the brakes, and the usual four-wheel drift kicks in,
but the steering never goes wooly or loses communication, and everything
is so progressive and catchable that unless you do something
spectacular, you shouldn’t lose your wits, or the car.
Done more sensibly, turn-in is clean, as is follow-through. A
positive mention for the tyres, while at it – surprisingly good grip,
and quiet too. And the ESC is as unintrusive as mentioned – the level of
provocation needed to get it going is quite high.
On the whole, based on the short sampling of the car, the Prevé looks
a promising proposition – certainly, the CFE variant is very much so.
Some overall aspects (like build quality and fit/finish) invariably need
tightening, but as a full package this one proves that it’s all getting
there.
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