Today in history

Finally… The MPV from our Malaysia local manufacturer Proton, the Proton Exora.

Equipped with 1.6 DOHC Campro CPS (S4PH), that comes with 125HP and 150Nm torque as usual, finally we will be looking how Malaysia driver learns how to plan when to overtake and when to enter roundabout etc…

Why? Because with a curb weight of 1448KG and with our very proud and “powderful” Campro CPS engine, one can easily floor the pedal and rev it high until 6k RPM just to overtake, a little Kancil or Kelisa, else with a litle wrong timing, it could be an accident.

But fear not, as our Proton Exora is equipped with very high tech safety and equipments that not even Honda or Toyota are putting in their vehicles. The list as below:

• A battery saver for room lamps, luggage and key ring illumination. These turn off after 30 seconds to ensure they do not make your battery flat if for some reason they are left in a situation where they are on all the time.
• Follow-me-home headlamps stay on for a certain period of time to help light up your walkway when you park and want to enter your house.
• The battery level for the remote key is indicated on the car’s instrument panel briefly when you turn the ignition on. The remote key has a range of 20 meters.
• The remote control will not work if your front door is not closed. The vehicle will also remind you if you activate a remote command if the rear door is not closed.
• There is a door open indicator on the instrument panel that indicates exactly which door, engine bay hood or rear hatch is not closed.
• There is a door opening warning when you reach a speed of 7km/h if any doors are open.
• Tap feature for the signal indicator stalk. This is similiar to alot of modern cars - you just have to tap the indicator stalk (not press fully) for the signal to flash 3 times to indicate a lane change and stop automatically, no need to press fully to turn on and reach for it again to deactivate it.
• Dim-in and dim-out feature for the interior room lamps - Proton says this is better for the eyes at night and it also adds a certain touch of class. The interior room lamps turn off automatically after you lock the car, or they also stay on for 30 seconds and then fade out in 2.8 seconds. When you unlock the car, the room light fade-in in 3.4 seconds.
• Front and rear wiper washer drip wiping - automatically wipe to remove excess water. What happens is when you operate the front washer, it will wipe 4 times and then pause for 5 seconds and then wipe one more time, to remove all the excess water effectively. This is because some of the washer liquid from the top of the windscreen will slowly drip down after the initial wiping, so the last wipe completely removes the washer water.
• Programmable front wiper interval. This can be anything from 1 seconds to 25 seconds. The default is 4 seconds. This is how you program it - you put it into INT and then back to off. Then you wait for the duration you want and turn switch it to INT again. The time duration you waited will become the new interval, up to a max of 25 seconds.
• The rear wiper turns on automatically when you engage reverse gear if your front wipers are on.
• If in SLOW mode, the front wiper changes mode to INT mode when you bring the MPV to a complete stop, let’s say in a traffic jam in the rain.
• The remote unlocks the drivers door only if pushed once - probably push twice to unlock all doors. Apparently you are able to configure this to unlock all doors at once by default.
• There is an alarm activation history kept but I am not sure how to access it, perhaps only at the service center.
• The doors will lock automatically once you reach a speed of 20km/h.
• The doors will unlock automatically once you remove the key from the key barrel.
• All doors unlock automatically upon a crash via a signal coming from the airbag control unit.
• If you perform any sudden braking at speeds of at least 96km/h, the hazard lights will flash automatically.

Exterior wise, very nice… Better than Avanza or Innova out there. Why? Try park a Mitsubishi Grandis beside and you will know…

And most importantly, with such “powderful” engine, along with new chassis and being the first ever Lotus Ride And Handling MPV, this junk actually takes 15.5 seconds from 0-100km/h.

Starting from RM69,988 for a M-line and up to RM75,998 for a H-line. Will see how it fares then… And no pictures will be posted to prevent eye sore perhaps?

(Info taken from paultan.org)