Good list and good explanations. I hope people do more reading rather than bashing without thinking.

One thing about myth four that wasn't brought up however is that Proton cars have better specs overseas than in Malaysia. You can get side airbags with a UK spec Waja to achieve the 3-star Euro NCAP rating. There is no official way to get that kind of specs in Malaysia. For several months the Savvy marketed overseas had airbags while Malaysian could not get it officially even if they wanted it.

Unfortunately Proton seems to believe that Malaysian lives are cheaper than UK lives.

This Euro-NCAP page for the 2002 UK spec Proton Impian obviously incuded side airbags, see the Model History section near the bottom. Obviously Proton did offer it at some point to satisfy the 3-star rating in the UK. They never offered the same spec in Malaysia as far as I know since I was looking at the Waja in 2002/3 as a possible car to buy.

I won't argue about the Euro NCAP ratings but I still stand by my statement that Proton believes that Malaysian lives are cheaper than UK/European ones! If they had designed the Savvy with airbags in mind then why not introduce them from the beginning?

Let me add one more data point. Volvo Malaysia actually has a price list for expatriates in the Malaysia My Second Home program which shows their cars before the excise duty and sales tax. If the NAP were to completely go away, don't forget that there is the sales tax so your OTR prices still won't be as low as the expatriate prices. What I can say however is that I can't afford the cars even at expat prices.

kcng, my argument isn't about minimum specs, it's about maximum specs. The max specs for the Waja in the UK at one point had side airbags. Top spec Waja in Malaysia *never* had side airbags. It's a case where the best stuff goes to the UK and Malaysians get scrap.

As a Malaysian company Proton should put Malaysians ahead of the export market, yet they don't. The Americans, Europeans, Japanese all value their local market far more than the export market.

I can say something on the US side, can't comment for the Brits/Europeans. The average salary for a family in the US for example is still less than US$50k per year, which after taxes translates to less than US$3k per month. Most people don't make enough to even afford a new Honda, much less a Cayman.

Second, you're looking at the base price of the Cayman. Add a lot for options and sales tax. Final sales price will probably be in the $60+k range. Financing is not as cheap as Malaysia, around 6-20% interest rate depending on your credit report.

Next, insurance. Insurance in the US is based on the type of car, your driving record, your age, where you live, your credit score and a whole bunch of other stuff. If you live in one of the big metro areas in the US, expect to pay a *huge* amount for insurance per month if you're young and single. Where I stay, it'll probably be up to $500 per month for insurance alone.

Add maintenance (wear and tear is very expensive for a Porsche), gas prices at $3 per gallon and everything adds up very quickly. Even if you paid 20% down, you're still looking at paying around $2k per month for the Cayman for everything.

If you're a Harvard MBA earning $200k a year, you can probably afford the Cayman. The typical IT engineer earning $50-60k a year can only dream of it. Cars are more expensive in Malaysia, no question about it. But it's not all green and shiny on the other side either.

You can go online to look at the numbers. My post is based on me living in the US for more than a decade and driving a car there. I don't drive a Porsche

That post was in response to the question "why do people overseas complain about high cost of ownership of cars", not that cars are cheaper in Malaysia.

Please read back a few pages and understand the context.