Proton Inspira Gets Thumbs Up from MMC Top Management

The Proton Inspira, due to be unleashed in a few days time, has garnered praises from Mitsubishi Motor Corporation’s top management and evaluation team as having better ride and handling characteristics and NVH (Noise, Vibration & Harshness) Isolation than the original Mitsubishi Lancer, the base vehicle from which the new Inspira is derived.

This was the final concluding comment from Mr Nakao, Head of R & D, Mr. Kobashi, DCGM of Asean, and Mr Tamura, Master Evaluator of the MMC team that made a thorough product evaluation and testing of the first Inspira off the assembly line at the Proton Plant in Shah Alam, where the Inspira is built on a mixed line with the Proton Exora.

Although the Proton Inspira is built on a ‘collaboration’ basis with Mitsubishi Motors Corporation, it goes beyond a mere ‘re-badge’ exercise. Leveraging upon its experience with Lotus Handling, the Proton team led by General Manager, Ride & Handling, Tengku Azizan Tengku Ahmad, went to work on the base car to evaluate its handling characteristics. Although the base Mitsubishi Lancer was found to be excellent, the team concluded that it could be improved – the team felt that there was a little too much roll, and some oversteer tendencies during cornering, and set to work on the Inspira version of the car to improve it.

Basically, the Proton Ride & Handling team developed new shock absorber damping force settings to tune the ride to suit Malaysian road conditions, and replaced the stabilizer bars front and rear to reduce roll during corners. The result is ride and handling characteristics that give the Inspira a more linear and progressive handling throughout a corner, and thus making it easier for the average driver to handle with ease.

Select members of the media were invited to tour the R & D facilities where the bulk of the development work has been carried out. Impressive and up to date equipment, including some proprietary equipment developed by Lotus were shown to the media.

Later, we went to the assembly line where the Inspira is assembled, and got a first hand look at how the cars were put together.

Personally, I think the product collaboration exercise between Proton and Mitsubishi is a healthy exercise – it cuts down valuable development time by adopting a current and well-proven base product, not to mention the huge savings in development costs.

Insofar as Malaysians are concerned, what we will get is not only a Mitsubishi Lancer, but an enhanced version that is already up and running, and not a product that was started from scratch – and at a more attractive price. Personally, i look forward to more exercises like this - for example, if the new Golf GTi were to be developed into the new Satria replacement, I would be amongst the first to put my name down for one!