The route is from the mamak parking -> long straight downhill stretch behind NSK -> turn right at the Nirvana junction -> go through the twisty road from the junction to Lakefields -> U-turn inside Lakefields -> return the same way we came from. mengsuan was in the front passenger seat while Carrera sat in the rear seat (sorry bro )

Exterior/Interior
After the drive we found that the Neo is quite a bit lower than my ford. I've always loved the Neo's exterior, more so with the skirting and splitters. Carrera also shared that the rear spoiler generates too much downforce when driven at high speed, which he seems not particularly fond off.

Interior is the normal Proton affair, plastics that rattle abit. The Neo interior is actually quite spartan even when compared to Saga. The leather seats held my body through corners well. The steering is nice and thick.

Drivetrain
The S4PH CPS lacks poke at the lower end, but when once past 3.5k it is rather relentless. I think the CPS switches profile past 4k RPM, but even before that you can already feel the surge of torque pushing the engine to redline. The gearshifts are nice and crisp, no rubbery feel. The brake pedal is still significantly higher than the throttle pedal like what you'd find in a Saga, which makes heel-toe quite difficult. I didn't attempt to heel-toe, though, as I think I will jerk the car til our balls drop.

One of the peculiar things I find in 5th gear is that when I lift off the throttle, the car doesn't seem to decelerate. It feels as though I am feathering the throttle to maintain speed even though I have completely released the gas pedal. It's not dbw lag....it feels like that all the way.

At the traffic light where we were the first car, Carrera even ask me to do launch control which I obliged, revving to 4k and dumping the clutch, launching the car with a nice wheelspin....this could get addictive All that, and the avg fuel consumption shows 7.9l/100km!!

Ride
The ride is stiff, stiffer even than my ford. In this aspect the Neo doesn't attempt any pretense that it is anything but a driver's car.

Handling
First thing I notice is it hardly bounces over road undulations. It dives and climbs those mini slopes like there is no play at all in the suspension. Sudden change in elevation doesn't seem to unsettle the car, it's almost like the tires have a death grip on the tarmac. Unfortunately there was traffic (particularly a troublesome Alza ) along the stretch between Nirvana and Lakefields, even so I think I touched 110km/h on that stretch. At that speed along that road I can say for sure it felt a lot more planted than my ford.

After we did the U-turn inside Lakefields and came back out there was a sharp left turn. After that corner Carrera was probably thinking why is this n00b slowing down and going wide in all the corners Truth is

1)I'm not used to the steering weight. It is nice and weighty but I am spoiled by EPS in the ford. If something untowards happen I was not sure I can save fast enough.
2)I'm unfamiliar with the car, I'll get to that later
3)I'm felt damn bad chucking Carrera around in the rear seats

On the matter of point 2). Because I'm familiar with the fiesta, I can tell when the grip reaches it's limit. a combination of bodyroll and butt-G-meter tells me when I should be expecting squealing from the tires and when I need to react. On the Neo, I had no such information. The bodyroll was minimum, at points when I was expecting squealing tires, there was none. I was damn afraid the wheels will suddenly give up and I'll spin the car into a longkang. In short, I reached my limit before the car reached it's. After all, I don't want to wreck a friend's car that I'm driving for the first time, by exploring the limits on public roads.

I did manage to make the rear end of a Suprima squeal during a showroom test drive, so it probably goes to show that the Neo's handling talents are much deeper. But then again the Suprima is also a family passenger car.
Verdict
The Neo was intended to be a driver's car and very little else. The ride is stiff, the rear seats are even smaller than Fiesta's, the engine and exhaust noise intrudes into the cabin quite a bit (not that I'm complaining), but it excels in what it is, a sporty coupe for the young and hot blooded. Would I buy one? If I am in the market for a sporty weekend ride and have RM60k++ to spare, absolutely. But then if I have RM100k to spare I'd get a Fiesta ecoboost and if I have RM140k to spare I'd get a 208 GTi/Fiesta ST. The Neo may not the last word in sporty hatchbacks, but you can do much, much worse and end up even poorer.

That said, the Neo is an aging model, I hope Proton will come up with something of similiar caliber before permanently discontinuing the model. No, the Suprima in it's current configuration would not suffice. Also important to note is that Carrera's Neo is bone stock down to the rims.

After returning to the car park we checked out mengsuan's Preve. I asked Carrera if he would trade in his Neo for the Preve, he simply shaked his head and answered "I love my Neo", and I know exactly why.