Ni Hao to our new Rover

[ChinaTom]

Just seen this outside our factory site. From my slightly Chineseified perspective I think it looks quite sweet. I wonder if any will make there way to UK. Only £10k, which over here is quite a decent price for this kind of car. The 750 (75) has fast become a glamorous motor - in the same way as we pigeon-holed the BMW before it became a rep-mobile. I think this will take off here.

 

 

Not sure about any Lotus connection though...

[Father Ted]

Weird, it looks like a proton. NIce enough in a curvy sort of way.

[Rocket88]

I think someone from Norfork lent them a shock absorber once.........................

[Milford Cubicle]

Wow! I remember hearing that MG-Rover were arranging to re-badge the Proton Gen-2 before they went bust, but didn't realise Roewe were on the same path too. Looks pretty grim to be honest.

[Cavcraft]

I've got to say that looks blooming horrible. Like Proton's designers drank 257 litres of Vodka each then were put into a wind machine at full tilt and asked to draw something blindfolded.

[r.welfare]

We get that over here as a Proton Gen-2, do we not? Sure I've seen one in the work car park.We used to get the Impian here as well but I think the range is now reduced to the Savvy and Gen-2 - and two fingers to the hardcore band of pensioners who mourn the passing of the original Proton "Triple-Valve" or whatever it was officially called...

[Father Ted]

and two fingers to the hardcore band of pensioners who mourn the passing of the original Proton "Triple-Valve" or whatever it was officially called...

MPI - lovely

[retrogeezer]

Yep, seen a few on the road here as Proton Gen-2....think they look o.k to be honest.http://www.proton.co.uk/gen-2/

[mk2_craig]

What the hell's going on there Fatha Ted? Auto Club Tuning Proton de France's annual Krooze?

[Father Ted]

Apparently : http://forum.lowyat.net/topic/554857

This lot like them a lot....

And then again, so do I.

[Split_Pin]

I'm not a fan to be honest, simply because of the looks of the Proton Gen-2 it is clearly based on. Trying too hard to be cool and failing IMO.Saying that, the latest offering from Proton looks fairly smart and the new Kia looks vaguaely Alfa-esque, but then again they are no longer priced as low as they used to be.Why dont they make them like they used to, using recycled designs, long since pensioned off by their original producers, such as the Riva, FSO, Nexia, and the above noted Proton Triple-Valve jobs

[Mash]

Humberside Police use them as PCSO cars.They have a deal with a local garage so a lot of our jam sandwiches here are Protons.I was a Silverstone for the historic meeting at the weekend and Lotus had a 60th anniversary stand. They had some Proton hybrid cars on there, I think they do quite a bit of R & D with them.

[martc]

I might be wrong, but don't Proton own Lotus?

[gtd2000]

I'm surprised you didn't realise this was a Proton design actually - I was more surprised that it might have been considered a Rover I'm a Proton owner at present and for basic transport the Mitsubishi design ticks a lot of boxes.10k for one of those cars is way overpriced in my opinion, think what you can buy in the USA for $20,000...

[Ratdat]

I might be wrong, but don't Proton own Lotus?

Yes they have a majority shareholding in them. They are connected with Kia too somewhere along the line as there's a Kia badged version of the FWD Elan.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

I believe Proton is partially state-owned in Malaysia, amazing really that Lotus is owned by them - this is a country which has recently cancelled all public infrastructure projects in order to start stockpiling imported food! The Gen-2 thing above was briefly tipped as a possible candidate for import and Roverisation by the Phoenix 4 when they were 'running' MG-Rover, luckily they managed to get a much better deal on Tata Cityrovers

[gtd2000]

Proton has secured a deal to supply fully built-up (CBU) Proton GEN2 cars to Youngman Automobile Group Ltd Co. to be sold in China. The agreement was signed between Proton Managing Director Dato’ Syed Zainal Abidin Syed Mohamed Tahir and Youngman through its Chairman, Pang Qingnian.The deal involves a minimum of 30,000 Proton GEN2 CBU cars that wil be rebadged in China under the brand EUROPESTAR and eventually Youngman and Proton (through Lotus Engineering) will be developing a new range of EUROPESTAR cars together. This supply contract is for a period of 20 months from the date of the first delivery of vehicles.I think it’s best that the underlying components of these new EUROPESTAR cars use component sharing with Proton cars, that way the economies of scale for both Youngman’s EUROPESTAR and Proton can improve together. From what I understand, the deal involves technical licensing of the GEN2 platform as well as the CamPro engine for future EUROPESTAR cars.Proton MD Syed Zainal says these are landmark win-win agreements as it would enable Proton to sell its products and commercialise its technologies in China through Youngman for their brand of passenger cars in a huge market with promise of exponential growth. Imagine, the Chinese auto market is already huge as it is, yet in reality Chinese car ownership is only at 1% of it’s population and is set to grow by 20 to 30% annually.“We are therefore positive with the prospects and export optimisation that will result in production volume increase at the Tanjung Malim plant. We are equally optimistic of the opportunities in commercialisation of PROTON’s technologies and intellectual property rights,†added Syed Zainal.However, in Proton’s announcement in Bursa Malaysia, it stated that the relationship of Proton and Youngman is one of independant contracting parties and shall not be construed as creating an agency or partnership between the parties.

Youngman....lol

[ChinaTom]

Interesting stuff. Just had a chat with the owner and he bought it from a local dealership. The badges on the car distinctly say RoeWe (actually the literal pronunciation of the Chinese characters is RongWay - someone obviously seeing sense before anglicizing the name). Proton do not market cars at all in China at the moment. We are so far out in the sticks (think Clenchwarton for a comparison with UK) here that any badge can be stuck on a car and be gotten away with. The interior had the same dash design as the Rovers (oval dials and fake wood). He's convinced its a RongWay, and as he is the son of the local mafia boss and he is doing the civils on my boiler house, I'm not about to argue with him. If I do that I'll be in a pillar this time tomorrow.

[Ross_K]

That thing's definitely a Proton Gen 2.Looks like your mafia buddy's gonna be sticking somebody's corpse in wet concrete.

[ChinaTom]

Tomorrow I'll tell him that he's a complete idiot, and not bother paying him anymore cash even though he's nearly finished the job. Before I slap his henchmen for good measure, I'll show him this:

 

 

Which is the new RoeWe 550.

 

Then, if I'm still alive, I'll invite him to join this site for driving a bloody Proton.

 

Sorry for the blunder there - I've been in this near-Siberian hell-hole for way too long to keep up with things.

[mk2_craig]

Imagine, the Chinese auto market is already huge as it is, yet in reality Chinese car ownership is only at 1% of it’s population and is set to grow by 20 to 30% annually.

Great, £5 a litre in 5 years' time then.

[gtd2000]

Tomorrow I'll tell him that he's a complete idiot, and not bother paying him anymore cash even though he's nearly finished the job. Before I slap his henchmen for good measure, I'll show him this:

 

 

Which is the new RoeWe 550.

 

Then, if I'm still alive, I'll invite him to join this site for driving a bloody Proton.

 

Sorry for the blunder there - I've been in this near-Siberian hell-hole for way too long to keep up with things.

I always found the Triads in Hong Kong to be pretty civilised overall...I thought they did a better job than any police force

 

It was quite entertaining when there was a bit of a turf war (a very rare event) and all these young Chinese lads set about each other with lengths of 4x2 or meat cleavers

 

The Chinese saying, "many ants can kill an elephant" certainly applies to Asian rules for fisty cuffs - no sign of the good ole Americanised "one on one" principle

 

What does the Chinese translate to - Is it "Golden Shite"?

[gtd2000]

Imagine, the Chinese auto market is already huge as it is, yet in reality Chinese car ownership is only at 1% of it’s population and is set to grow by 20 to 30% annually.

Great, £5 a litre in 5 years' time then.

Being the cynic that I am regarding Big Government, I fear we'll actually have relatively cheap fuel at that point in time and horrendous road pricing in effect...

[ChinaTom]

There is no comparison possible with Hong Kong - it may be the same overall nation, but the difference between the extreme north and the extreme south is wider than Finland to Greece. Different language, and basically HongKong was 400 years more advanced in 1975 than mid-to-north HeiLongJiang Province. I am sandwiched between Mongolia and Khaborovsk for the rest of the year. These thugs are BaiJiu (local equivalent to Vodka) glugging descendents of Ghengis Khan - with the attitude. They turn up on the back of a tractor (younger generations drive re-badged Protons) to collect their tribute. Talking of tractors, took delivery of these this morning:

 

 

Uses a tonne of diesel a day.

[gtd2000]

There is no comparison possible with Hong Kong - it may be the same overall nation, but the difference between the extreme north and the extreme south is wider than Finland to Greece. Different language, and basically HongKong was 400 years more advanced in 1975 than mid-to-north HeiLongJiang Province. I am sandwiched between Mongolia and Khaborovsk for the rest of the year. These thugs are BaiJiu (local equivalent to Vodka) glugging descendents of Ghengis Khan - with the attitude. They turn up on the back of a tractor (younger generations drive re-badged Protons) to collect their tribute. Talking of tractors, took delivery of these this morning:

Yeah, I can well imagine it might be a bit grim up that way!I've done a fair bit of travel around China but never further North than Beijing nor East than Shanghai.I have enjoyed my times in China (6 years based in HK on the airport project) especially Beijing and in the South West in Gwei Lin.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

hey that tractor thing is pretty cool, what size engine is it?

[ChinaTom]

Hey, Guilin is close to where I actually live (i.e my own house as opposed to this building site/sugar factory). I live in Nanning - 4 hours south of GuiLin, (probably more hours than that if the highway hadn't been built)The tractor is a 1647.5 cu inch 6 pot making something like 580 bhp. God knows why the Ag boys bought these - average size of a beet field here is a sixteenth of an acre. Someone didn't do their homework, but GR8 4 dossin about on the flat pad. Wasted 1200kg of diesel today racing them. Those tracks will need replacing every month at this rate.Thought about flattening that Proton, but thought better of it.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Wow, 10 litre! Its probabl a Caterpillar C9 engine with a VNT blowa on it.

[gtd2000]

Hey, Guilin is close to where I actually live (i.e my own house as opposed to this building site/sugar factory). I live in Nanning - 4 hours south of GuiLin, (probably more hours than that if the highway hadn't been built)

You must be almost in Vietnam there then

[mk2_craig]

The tractor is a 1647.5 cu inch 6 pot making something like 580 bhp.

4lo.com says 27,000cc - that's about Merlin engine size is it not? With half the number of cylinders. Nice. World's oil reserves won't last long with too many of those things around