I like browsing the classifieds, namely Mudah.my which I believe is the best place for Malaysians to go car hunting whilst online. You can find the used car of your dreams here but sometimes, you can't help but wonder how genuine or trustworthy is the salesman who posted the ad over there. The ad stated herein is proof why one should always personalise their ads and not use the 'Cut and Paste' function if you really, really want to sell the car. Would you believe the advert details after looking at the photograph above? I highlighted the important parts below.

MERCEDES BENZ 260E ( A ) " W 124 " FUEL INJECTION ! 1989 ' 

- 1 HAJI OWNER !
- MEGA SPEC ! 
- OWNER UPGRADED TO MERCEDES BENZ E200 ! 
- FULL LEATHER SEATS 
- CD PLAYER 
- 4 X POWER WINDOW 
- POWER MIRROR 
- TWIN CAM ENGINE 
- 15 " ALLOY WHEELS AND MANY EXTRAS MORE ! 
- WELL KEPT ! 
- GUARANTEE ACCIDENT FREE !
- ORIGINAL FACTORY 2 TONE PAINT ! 
- SEE TO BELIEVED ! 
- WE ACCEPT TRADE IN !
- BROKER ARE WELCOME ! 


photo: mudah.my

The 1990 W124 Mercedes Benz 200e featured in here as well in CarThrottle previously is alive and well. It dutifully serves his master well in his daily commute to and from the center of Kuala Lumpur to his place of residence somewhere on the hillslopes of Ulu Klang. This car shares this duty with a Mazda Roadster, so it gets to rest its old legs for a few days at a time.

The car has evolved again actually. From the upgraded AMG alloy wheels in the first feature (above) in here to the WALD bodykitted feature over at CarThrottle (below), it now has a new leather interior in grey in place of the fabric trim and a new body kit.

It sports an AMG bodykit these days.
The reason for this change is that its owner, Adlis K, reckons that the Wald bodykit looks a little tame (or a little too feminine) even though it does make the old Merc a little more late 1990s instead of something from the late 1980s. With the Wald kit, it looks like a W202 Mercedes Benz C-class. In fact the front bumper setup looked like it was taken from a C36 AMG and modified to suit the W124.

The AMG W124 bodykit is more angular, more squarish and therefore slightly more aggressive, and manly. This is the same look that you'd get from the classic 1986 AMG Hammer (which is totally revered by yours truly as the first truly ridiculous super saloon - 6.0liters of V8 power in a narrow, upright sedan, what could be more outrageous?). This is the earlier bodykit compared to the one used in the E36 AMG variant used in the mid-90s, which was a little smoother and a little more like the Wald kit.

The surprising thing about this change in the looks was that it actually happened about 6 months or so after the installation of the previous bodykit. Ah, the pursuit for perfection..........leads to many bodykits.

So its now time for me to start writing another one of my 'unbiased' points of view on a certain car or cars. The past six months have been pretty good to me in terms of motoring as I started to write for myautoblog.org and then for www.carthrottle.com. I have to thank a very old pal of mine, Chan Lee Meng of uglychickens.blogspot.com who pointed me to the direction where I should be paid for what I write as he thinks that some of my articles are pretty decent. I suppose he was right, and I therefore owe him one. Big time.

Now writing for a wider audience is a good thing and also a bad thing. The good thing is that I still speak my mind on stuff on these sites, the bad thing is that there is now a wider audience that disagrees with what I say. Of course, there are those who agree with me too. But the point I am making here is that, I do like the attention, and criticism does not hurt me. Maybe I am thick skinned. And this is a good thing isn't it?

Anyway, I am now supposed to substantiate my remark that the Proton Persona is the best affordable 4 door sedan you can buy in Malaysia today. I should, as it really is a decent car to buy.


So we have the Proton Persona, it is a 4 door version of the Proton Gen2. It has a 110bhp CAMPRO engine with a variable inlet manifold (which Proton calls IAFM) to get rid of the infamous torque dip, no, not infamous. That is what politically correct journalists who get their cars from Proton and the free food and drives. I had to basically be nice to my friend's cousin to take this latest facelifted Persona SE 1.6 Automatic for a drive.

I was so 'nice' that when I kept criticizing the car he still agreed with me. He met my friend, his cousin, and I in Shah Alam while we were spare parts hunting for the twenty year old Mercedes 200E W124 (pic above) I mentioned in this previous article. And since the Persona was newly facelifted (and only two weeks old) I asked to drive it around Shah Alam and then back to his apartment somewhere near Mont Kiara. So it was a pretty long drive of Shah Alam back roads, some traffic, the NKVE, and onwards to Mont Kiara via SPRINT highway and then towards Sri Hartamas. All this with the 200E as company.

Now where was I? Yes, the CAMPRO torque dip. It is not infamous, it is horrendous, terrible,  crap, rubbish and life threatening due to the inability to overtake properly. Another of my friend hated this torque dip in his mother in law's Gen2 so much he rejoiced when she wanted to get rid of it. In manual mode this torque dip is slightly lessened by the part where you can choose the gears yourself. In the automatic pre-IAFM Gen2 it was so bad that when you stepped on the throttle nothing happened. It would pick up speed then not pick up speed and then when the engine is screaming at 6,000rpm it tries to go somewhere but by then you're already cursing and swearing.

So this new Persona is nothing like that. It has a really sensitive 4 speed auto box that seems to downshift almost all the time. Give it a slight gradient it will downshift if you're cruising at 80km/h. It is very responsive. Some will say that this is too responsive and it will make the Persona uneconomical. Hello, it's a 1.6. it already is decently economical. If you want total fuel savings buy a Perodua Viva. Live a little, let the autobox downshift and upshift as it likes. I mean, you want perky car instead of a dim witted one right?


Anyway, the Persona's autobox works well for the car. Coupled with the IAFM equipped 1.6 liter engine the power felt alright for a car this size and weight. I liked its sporty nature and only in really sharp bends the auto box will hesitate a little. But like the little Mazda 2 Sedan I tried recently, you can shift manually to try lessen this problem. And the reason why I brought up the Mazda 2 is that this top of the line Persona feels a little like the Mazda when it comes to driving dynamics but it is at least RM15k cheaper than the base Mazda 2.

It has that same light footed feeling and that same eagerness to change direction that the Mazda has and I liked it. The thing that differs from the Mazda is that the Mazda feels like it has more cornering grip and less roll. The Persona rolls a bit, but it is all predictable and the Persona feels very well sorted out.

On the NKVE slip road towards the Damansara Toll Booth from Shah Alam it would hold the line nicely while cornering at about 100km/h even with factory fitted 195/60/15 tires (it would be fabulous with upsized rims and tires). It also reacts nicely to high speed lane changes. No drama whatsoever. My friend who was following in his Mercedes Benz 200E said the car looked good while cornering and he had trouble keeping up with the Persona through that sweeping corner. Then again, you can't blame him as it is a twenty year old car.

Refinement at 140km/h seems pretty good with not much wind noise too (the Mazda 2 had as much engine noise as well as wind noise – so the Persona is better here). The only drawback is the throaty induction roar that seems ever present at over 4,000rpm. But that also seems to be a minor irritant as it is the by product of enthusiastic driving. Although some might say that this Persona isn't a performance car, hence the gearbox should not be so gear change happy or the engine that rorty. But that is their opinion. If a car can be driven fast and be enjoyed for its handling, then you should categorize it as something else. So this Persona may be slightly noisy and it may be slightly uneconomical. But if you want a good drive, ignore this two faults.

The next thing I want to add on why the Persona SE (on fact the more basic and cheaper models) is a pretty good driver's car is that it costs five hundred Ringgit short of RM60k. No other car comes close as giving you a car that is as what I said above. The Proton Saga? Beam Axle, flat seats and that dumpy looking body. I want a car that handles and it also proportioned. The Perodua Myvi? Well, it has a tall hatchback body, beam axle and everything that's tuned for comfort and for a good city drive, not performance. The Toyota Vios? It costs RM73k for a Vios J and it is a Toyota. When has a bread and butter Toyota ever been sporty? The new Kia Forte? A very good car that handles but, to get the same specs it costs RM75k. So it's not really affordable to those who earn less. The Proton Waja? Please leave this shopping trolley for the Malaysian Police to use. It has a seat which seems to have support in all the wrong places, it has a driving position that is slightly offset to one side, it has a steering wheel that is a little too fat in all the wrong places and it is a shopping trolley. Why would you want to drive that?

So now we come to the most glaring fault in the Persona. The only fault that for me is as glaring as a ridiculously overpriced One Hundred and Fifteen Thousand Ringgit Proton Satria Neo is the steering position of the Persona, and therefore the Gen2 and of course, the Satria Neo.

We usually have an adjustable in most cars, most for rake and some also for reach. The Persona has one that adjusts for rake, or up and down or high and low. I like the sit up straight race car style driving position and I did just that with the Persona. I got the seat in the right position and angle. I reached for the steering wheel and found out it was low or if I wanted to adjust, lower till it hit my thighs. At its highest position, I had two inches of clearance and if I wanted a decent steering position, I would have to drive the Persona at the ten minutes to one (still too low) position, or thereabouts. In any other car, it would be low to high, but not here. It could be that the seat (which has good side support by the way) is set too high, but I have quite a good pedal and leg alignment so the main fault lies in the steering mount. The engineers who engineered this must have been a hobbit that has a grudge against all people taller than 5feet 7inches.

So there you have it. The biggest flaw to this handling package. I have to add that after a while it became slightly bearable as I kept using that slightly different steering grip. Then when you notice little things like a normal old school hydraulic steering rack instead of the electrically assisted ones that manufacturers like to use in order to gain 3% fuel economy over feel, the all round disc brakes with ABS (spongy due to the ABS – a non ABS Gen2 I tried seems better) which most cars in its price range do not have and that it has a full multi-link rear suspension unlike the beam axle suspension that other cars in its price range have, you've got a winner here folks. I also have to mention that the whole car, while the plastic is all hard, nothing fell off and everything felt well screwed together. It looks like it will be hard wearing and will last awhile. It isn't even ugly, so its a good thing here too.

That advertisement from Proton showing that pregnant lady avoiding deers, cutting it real close to the side railing and other stunts seem pretty feasible in this car. Not to mention the tuning potential. Give it lower aftermarket seats, a rally style dish steering wheel, wider tires and bigger rims (17”), and a set of coil overs, it would be a good drive. I'd try to stay away from an open pod air filter though, unless you don't care about the induction noise.

There. This is why I said earlier that the Proton Persona SE is the best handling affordable 4 door sedan in Malaysia. But while it is so good I still want to buy that old 200E over this. Ah, the irony.
Find out the reason why the old car wins this comparo when I get to part 2. The question now is...... when will I get to writing part 2?

Facelifted Proton Persona SE 1.6 automatic
Likes: good chassis balance, over responsive gearbox (hey, this isn't about fuel economy), price
Dislikes: low steering position (if you are short or you like go-karting, this is fine), spongy brakes

 I had a chance to drive the newly facelifted Proton Persona on Saturday. It was the full spec RM59,500 Automatic SE version and I will write up something about it soon. No it isn't a supersports car or anything like that. BUT, it is actually relevant to most Malaysians looking to buy an affordable decent handling car. I drove it through the roads around Batu Tiga in Shah Alam, through the NKVE (Shah Alam to Damansara) and then towards Mont Kiara/Segambut Dalam via SPRINT - Bukit Kiara. Quite interesting.

It is 100% better to drive fast than any stock Perodua Myvi SE which sells for RM52,000. It is also better than actually spending an extra RM13,000+ on a basic Toyota Vios J with an auto box. Don't mention the Saga. That is just a form of transport slightly better than buying a Datsun Sunny.

It is the best handling extremely affordable 4 door sedan on the market. There are some issues of course. Wait for a full write up soon.

But, while testing a brand new car (the Persona was two weeks old) , I thoroughly enjoyed hustling this 20 year old car around.



Of course this wasn't the first time I've had the opportunity to do so in this car but this time, I was driving it for most of the day (swapping driving duties with the owner) as we scouted for parts shops, number plates, paint shops for the car and food for us throughout Klang Valley. I also really pushed it hard through a few corners, like the Jalan Semantan left hander down into Jalan Duta at around 80km/h.........and it was....something worth writing in detail about.

After driving a two week old car and a twenty year old car in the same day the conclusion is utterly surprising. I will also be writing about this and the cornering experience in both cars soon!

A month has come and gone. We had Earth Hour recently. We had Earth Day also recently (which I think made absolutely no impact on saving the planet whatsoever). We had a change of Prime Ministers recently (good riddance to the previous, hope for the best in the new one!), and we had 3 by-elections for us coffeeshop political analysts to sit around and have their unofficial post mortems to chat about. As for yours truly, yes, I did my part during earth hour. My family and I were at my wife’s family home in Petaling Jaya where we basically sat in the dark and gossiped about family matters. Now how many of you actually turned off their lights during Earth Hour? Remember, its turning off the lights, not life support machines for the elderly or incubators for premature babies. Imagine if people did just that.

Now as brutal and uncaring I may seem, I was coerced to do my part for the hour. But let me tell you the real facts of such a ‘token gesture’. Earth Hour doesn’t actually save the planet from burning up tons of carbon and polluting the atmosphere. This program is about asking households and businesses to turn off their non-essential lights and other electrical appliances for one hour to raise awareness towards the need to take action on climate change. It is however a token gesture with no real savings. Why do I say so? It’s simple.

It seems that the following was saved as an example:

“The Philippines was able to save 611 MWh of electricity during the time period, and is said to be equivalent to shutting down a dozen coal-fired power plants for an hour.”

However, that didn’t take into account the paraffin candles burnt, battery operated torchlights used, and bonfires created as well as other forms of light that use some sort of energy that isn’t solar or hydro electrically operated. These sorts of lights also use carbon based fuel, which is basically the same as what’s used in most power generation stations. Not to mention, we have to note that power generation by any nation’s power plants flows through a grid that does not have a storage capability of any excess power generated. Imagine having a battery the size of Mount Kinabalu. Even then it wouldn’t be enough to store excess electricity generated by all the power producers in the country.

The only actual savings are each and every participant’s electricity bill but not the nation’s power producing bill. No one actually knows if the power producers actually scaled back production of power during that period, and I do not think 1 hour is actually a long enough time for the managers of Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) to say “Gee, Earth Hour’s approaching….let’s cut the power producing by 15% for the next hour.” It’s actually not possible. It may be easier to ask them to produce facial hair then ask them to draw out a production plan for 1 measly hour, being a government linked body. So Earth Hour is for individuals. To educate them on how to save some money, and some power consumption in their area and not much more. It would be beneficial if this Earth Hour was a daily event whereby everyone cuts their consumption of electricity by 10% throughout the day. When that happens, the production planners at TNB would realize that power consumption is lower and they will then adjust overall production accordingly. Then actual carbon savings would exist. So, 1 hour per year does diddly squat actually. But hey, sometimes any event celebrated globally is actually an excuse to party together and nothing else.

On the point of something motoring yet GREEN, I have to state that hybrid cars like the Honda Civic Hybrid sold here isn’t all that green. Have you ever thought of the lifespan of that car? Car manufacturers would like that you change your car every 5 years or so basically to keep them in business. But the fact is that if you change your car every 5 years or so, it’s uneconomical in the environmental sort of way as you haven’t taken into account the amount of energy that goes into producing a car. In order to produce a car we have to take into account the raw material transported to the factory, the energy needed to mould and stamp metal body parts, to mould and stamp plastic parts, rubber and to make tempered glass isn’t all that energy free. If you use a car and change it every 5 years or so, you’re causing even more waste of energy.

On another note, do you think your Honda Hybrid’s battery would still be efficient after 4 years or so of use in this hot and humid climate? I’d bet that by the 5th year you’d need new batteries. New batteries for a Hybrid may cost you RM10,000.00 as they are not cheap. Now have you thought of disposing those batteries? They’re gonna be a pain to dispose of in an environmentally friendly way in this country as we haven’t the rules and regulation in place for that.

You want to be environmentally friendly yet drive a decent car? Buy any car with a catalytic converter (and keep the converter in place) and use it for at least 9-10 years. That’s the right thing to do when it comes to cars. And trust me, cars nowadays aren’t as faulty as cars from the 1970s. They are basically bulletproof in some ways and with some maintenance and car they will last longer than 15 years.

Another way to safe the environment is to buy a second hand car. This basically means that you’re buying something that is already around for a while and that doesn’t cost any more energy to produce (brand new). I’d suggest the Mercedes Benz W124 series. These cars were produced from the mid-80s till the mid 90s. These cars were built like vaults and have already reached a kind of motoring icon status due to its reliability, solidity and durability. We’ve seen shows like 5th Gear trashing a W124 (wagon) to bits and it still performed admirably. We are still seeing them ply the streets of Kuala Lumpur and Putra Jaya and on the North-South Highway. Some of thse cars have 300,000-500,000 km mileage and they are still going strong. Heck, I’ve seen a few of these still plying the streets of Singapore, where nearly everything is less than 5 years old! I suppose it doesn’t look that dated. Integrated bumpers, flush fit doors, very conservative yet uncluttered design does that.

I’ve driven a few of these cars over the years and while they are slightly dull to drive, I’ve always felt that if I was in the market for a dependable luxury cruiser, albeit cheap to purchase and maintain yet comfortable enough to make long highway cruises, I’ve buy one in an instant. What makes them dull to drive is the slow recirculating ball type steering wheel and that funny two stage throttle pedal. The thing with the steering is that it has no feel whatsoever. Some feedback from the road is actually good, but in this car, you basically use it to turn and there’s no connection whatsoever. Which may be a good thing if you just want to waft through someplace stress free. The throttle pedal however is something which you’d get used to I suppose. An trait that we have to get used to, like the stupid gearshift in the Alfa 147 I drove, the handbrake in my old 1982 Civic or like hitting some switches on the Millennium Falcon to get Hyperspace drive.

But, I have to say that if you bought a 6 cylinder W124 series Mercedes, things are actually quite happening. I’ve driven the 200E, 230CE, 260E and the 300E. The latter two are actually quite fantastic to drive. You would notice that the W124 is actually pretty nimble with a 2.6liter or a 3.0liter 6 cylinder engine. There’s more than ample torque to get it moving, the 4 speed automatic box pretty smooth and eager. Progress through any highway would be faster than brisk. You’d be able to cruise at 200km/h in one of these 15 + year old cars. You would be surprised that once you get over that dead steering wheel you’d notice that this tall, squarish sedan can actually hustle. Grip is abundant and you have to realize, it was designed and (mostly) made in Germany; the place of high speed cruising. Ride comfort is pretty decent. Firm and solid but pliant enough for most. If you have one of those Honda Civics, Proton Gen2s on sports springs, the W124 would still feel like a luxury sedan. Even Perdana owners would be surprised that it’s as comfortable as one and it may be actually be cheaper to maintain that one!

Go buy one, change the bushings, get new shocks and it’ll allow you to have decent motoring at a fraction of the price of a brand new Mercedes. If you have a bit more, buy the 2 door CE version. It has a slight shorter wheelbase and a sportier design from the A pillar backwards. Everything else feels the same and maintenance would be the same too.

So save the planet, buy an older 6 cylinder car (lots of power here which is a good thing) that could last you through the next 2 decades. You buy a car that lasts longer and is already built, you don’t’ contribute to mass production that partly contributes to the planet’s decay. Either that or you could buy yourself your dream car, but use it for about 10 over years. That’s actual savings.