Proton’s saga as car for cabbies

WHEN the Proton Saga was launched in 1985, many Malaysians were filled with pride at the introduction of their national car. In fact, it was little more than a rebadged Mitsubishi except it had more content made in Malaysia than other locally assembled cars.

The pattern stayed the same for subsequent Proton models until the Proton Waja was introduced in 2000. This locally designed model was fitted with Mitsubishi engines until they were replaced by CamPro engines co-developed with Lotus in 2007.