Hyundai in late 90's was garbage and worse than proton (compare old elantra with wira). But just look at them now, they are on par with the Japanese.

The only way proton will improve is to remove tax on foreign cars, that way proton will face a do or die situation and let the free market choose what is best. If more imported cars, then there will be more showrooms and more service centers opening up, the jobs will just go elsewhere, it's not the end of the world.

Because of this stupid proton protection policy people are having to take out 9 year loans on their cars and seriously damages their purchasing power. The lack of public transport basically makes a car mandatory for living in most of Malaysia. If people have a higher purchasing power and aren't burdened with the stupid car loans then people will begin to spend more money and the economy will boom and these 250,000 people can just find other jobs in other car showrooms or a variety of different industries.

Sell the factories to Volkswagen and let them produce whatever they want. Malaysia is a lot more stable than Thailand (Thai PM was just ousted a few hours ago and Thailand is on the brink of Civil war, plus Honda and Nissan factories were destroyed in the floods and there is no flood prevention system in place because of non functioning government). There problem solved.

As long as old man still alive, nothing will happen.