Hi all,

I am back from the media launch of the upgraded satria neo CPS held in APAC, Subang.
The review below is totally based from my point of view.

Satria NEO CPS is only available in H-Line only.

Review of the car
--------------------
Interior:
As shown by the picture below, the interior is basically the same expect for the plastic leather seats, colour tone and also the door trim.
The meter panel is exactly like the previous NEO. No fancy design what so ever.

The new interior colour tone


The door trim

Notice the red trim?

The front seats


The rear seats


The steering wheel, notice the odd colour tone ??


The same meter panel, only difference is the colour they used for the numbering (milage, DTE, L/100km etc), previously its blue and now its orange/amber


The gear knob (Manual transmission)


Me on the test drive list:


Exterior will be posted in the next post.

Test Drive Review:
The test drive course was actually a mini auto khana course with tight turns.

Oh my, I was in for a surprise. The laggy drive-by-wire found in the previous NEO is not apparent at all in this CPS model. The throttle response was almost instant. Power delivery is smooth. Tap the throttle and go. Based on driving the car itself, the heavier weight (1212kg 1.6 MT) compared to the previous (1159kg 1.6 MT) is not apparent at all in this model.

The car just keep on going and going. You gotta test this car out for yourself and you can see the difference.
After testing the CPS neo, driving back my NEO was kinda sad because the power delivery and the throttle response of the stock standard CPS is very much better compared to my mildly modded NEO.

Power is not the main concern of the NEO CPS. It is the handling that is where the improvement can be seen.

In stock form itself, the body roll is very minimal even tho the car is being thrown around the tight corners. I dare say in stock form, the NEO CPS handles as well as as regular NEO that is done up with strut bars and all. The car is very neutral when being thrown into corners, it just goes where ever you point the steering to. Mind you, the grip is provided by stock CSC-1 rubbers in 195/50/16. If a much better rubbers is use, just imagine the potential of this car.

All in all, this has the potential to succeed Satria GTi as Malaysia next hot hatch.
The styling is spot on, the handling is spot on, and from the test drive trashing, the interior build seems spot on.
Only time will tell.
Hopefully proton get this right by minimizing QC issues with this car.

My dissapointment is that (personal view)
- no Auto folding side mirror
- no HID
- the steering wheel colour is poorly match to the leather wrapping. if you have seen it life, it looks odd seriously.
- interior space utilisation is still poor. so many empty space that can be made into compartments that can be used to store stuffs



This post has been edited by kcng: Feb 14 2009, 04:38 AM

Exterior:
As many has already seen from the spyshots, the exterior is as follows

The rims with CSC-1 as standard rubbers


Front view




Rear view


The spoiler


Side profile






The logo to show what is under the hood


The engine


This post has been edited by kcng: Feb 14 2009, 03:57 AM

This is nice to hear

Thanks for the pics and review

nice review...the grey bolt nuts above the tyre area..doesn't look fit to the design..i think dont have bolt nuts better..more clean design i think.

i wan the rear diffuser... any chance to get it.. hurm...

For the first time in my life...

I like the front bumper...

the rear spoiler

the wheel arch actually looks nicer on black colour because the rubber strip is not as apparent on the white colour


if u look closely above, you can see the white rubber strip that will turn yellow over time thus standing out and make it ugly

look more like a street racer design?

yeah..it will be better looking in white for the solid white, and black for the matalic black.

ohh..and the rim color makes the rim look very plastic feel from the picture.

This post has been edited by nonadoes: Feb 13 2009, 06:59 PM

ya....you're right
the steering colour looks weird...doesn't match like saga's steering

This post has been edited by MR_alien: Feb 13 2009, 06:59 PM

The spoilers look like seriously stupid

the spoiler serve a purpose


at least according to the engineering spec

Lotus handling... Proton engineering?

Lotus is light and stable... Proton is heavy and stable...

may i know the top speed of this car? and 0- 100 takes how many sec?

0-100 according to brochure is 10.5 something... top speed 190

price?

Starting from 54K to 60K... Of course auto being more expensive

proton can make the car light also

using light high tensile steel but will the buyers pay the price for it?