The recent acquisition of national carmaker Proton Group by DRB-Hicom which is the Malaysia assembler of Volkswagen cars have many anticipating just where the future directions are for Proton.
For those of you who are wondering, this would mean that Proton could just be re-badging the VW car in the future. According to a report in the Business times, VW have earmarked the highly successful Volkswagen Polo for a Proton rebadging campaign.
Reports state that Volkswagen AG has identified the Polo as the best vehicle to be re-badged by Proton and a special tem to look into this exercise will be led by Soh Wei Ming, the Operationg Head of VW Asia Pacific. Currently, the VW Polo is being sold in Malaysia where the 1.2 TSI model is retailing at RM113,888. With this exercise, the locally-made Polo which will be marketed under the Proton brand would be able to push the price down to below RM70,000 which could spell trouble for many best-selling cars in the segment like the Vios and the Myvi.
No news on whether which Polo would be involved but judging by the markets which Proton is strong in, it could well be the Volkswagen Polo Sedan and this could be the start of a really interesting partnership.
