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| URL:
http://riceornot.ricecop.com/?auto=86571 |
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| Comments: 8 (Read/Post) Favorites: 0 (View) |
Submitted
on: 01-23-2012
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Category:
Car |
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Description:
Proton Saga ... Essentially a warmed-up Mitsubishi design built under license in Malaysia starting in the 1980's so that country could have it's own domestic-built vehicle as opposed to buying incomplete vehicles in kit forms from various Asian makers and assembling them with local labor. |
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| #2 |
1-23-2012 @ 02:43:58 AM |
| Posted By : Low-Tech Redneck |
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The Saga was also the last chapter of the Yugo story in America. By 1988 it was clear the Yugo was not going to last in the US Market, a combination of bad PR about its' cheapness and financial distress at Yugo of America due to mismanagement. It was clear that the company had to come up with a better car to sell for the 88-89 model year, either they could retool the Yugo production line to higher standards, or just find another car to import. They settled on importing the Protons... or would have. The car was built to Malaysian safety and emissions standards, not US ones, and it would never be able to meet them with it's stock engine. Yugo of America figured they'd be able to buy US-spec engines from Mitsubishi (since the car used old Mitsu tooling in production) and retrofit them. They then signed the import deals, the dealership deals, and were all ready to go... and then finally got a rude shock when Mitsu refused to sell them motors, as they rightfully didn't want to be
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| #3 |
1-23-2012 @ 02:44:56 AM |
| Posted By : Low-Tech Redneck |
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#2, competing with THEMSELVES in the US market. Yugo execs fumed, threated to sue for breech of contract, despite NO CONTRACT ever having been signed and within 9 months of the contract breakdown, Yugo was out of business in the US for good. Proton never again tried for US import. The homologizing costs were just too great since Malaysia, as a former UK colony, is right-hand drive. That did allow them to eventually have some modest UK imports.
[Edited by Low-Tech Redneck on 1-23-2012 @ 02:49:04 AM]
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| #5 |
1-23-2012 @ 04:30:40 AM |
| Posted By : Low-Tech Redneck |
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#4, Yugo of America's plan had been to sell the Yugo 45 (GV) for a couple years to establish the brand and then import the Florida, it had been on the drawing boards when they financed the original deal and had always had an eye towards bigger and better models once they got a foothold. They also considered establishing themselves as a multi-brand importer, and had actually set up a subsidiary called "Global Motors" with a plan to keep their dealer network in place and simply rotate various models through depending on where in the 2nd and 3rd world they could get cheap build-under-license knock offs from. Ultimately, mismanagement and the razor-thin profit margins on economy cars meant they never had enough capital to do either, even during the loan-happy 80's
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| #7 |
1-23-2012 @ 05:38:25 AM |
| Posted By : Low-Tech Redneck |
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#6, By the time the Yugo finally got to America, they were on attempt number 3 to sell in the US. Two times before, prospective companies had thought about importing them but had always been turned down by poor QC. The plastics were cheap and broke easy, the car's Fiat heritage meant the holes in the firewall/panels to pass wiring harnesses through were too small for Soviet-spec electrical wires, so each wire harness had to have it's plugs cut off, passed through the hole, and then re-spliced on the other side, leading to all kinds of crossed wires and splicing failures, there was no dedicated paintshop at the factory, cars were simply sprayed down as a last step on the line, without being washed first, so the finishes were impregnated with metal filings and grease that meant the paint wouldn't stick or would get rust spots within months of delivery, fenders were dented by rough handling before they even went on the car.... the imported ones were actually of BETTER quality than domestic
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| #8 |
1-25-2012 @ 03:43:43 AM |
| Posted By : Low-Tech Redneck |
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Oh, and incidentally, the name "Saga" in this case doesn't mean the English word of "time period" or "age", rather, it was named after an indigenous Malaysian plant with notoriously hearty seeds, and was chosen as the winner from a public mail-in contest.
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