Tun Dr Mahathir drives a Proton S70 with unique specs, custom made for the 99-year old ‘car guy’?

2 months ago 48

Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad is surely the oldest practicing car feline successful Malaysia? The 4th and seventh premier minister’s emotion for automobiles and driving himself is good documented, and he’s inactive doing it today, astatine 99 years old. Yes, the antheral volition beryllium a period aged adjacent twelvemonth and he’s inactive sharp. Here, the ‘father of Proton’ is pictured driving the marque’s latest sedan, the S70.

What besides caught our oculus is the spec of this S70, which doesn’t lucifer immoderate of the four variants disposable successful showrooms – Executive, Premium, Flagship and Flagship X. Based connected the leatherette upholstery, 8.0-inch touchscreen infotainment strategy and analogue metre panel, this ought to beryllium the Premium.

However, the car besides comes with a sunroof, which is exclusive to the Flagship X. The range-topping X is fundamentally the Flagship with the summation of a sunroof and beforehand dashcam. Is this a one-of-a-kind S70 customized made for Tun? Not surprising, arsenic the statesman is the laminitis of Proton and was the carmaker’s president until 2016.

Flagship compartment connected the left, smaller screen/analogue metre of the Premium connected the right

Launched successful November past year, the S70 is based connected the Geely Emgrand, which shares the X50’s BMA platform. It’s a interaction larger than the B-segment Honda City, but Proton calls the S70 a C-segment sedan and has fixed it a 1.5-litre turbo engine.

That’s the 1.5-litre port-injected three-cylinder motor that powers the X50 Standard to Premium (not the 177 PS/255 Nm 1.5L TGDi portion successful the X50 Flagship and X70 MC). The 150 PS/226 Nm 1.5L MPI portion is paired to a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic – truthful the quality betwixt the RM74k Executive and the RM95k Flagship X boils down to kit – and you tin compare the specs here.

Also cheque retired our broad reappraisal of the S70 below, arsenic good arsenic galleries of each the variants.