Car: Proton Satria Neo 1.6 GSX
Prices: £9,995 - on the road
Insurance Group: 7
Emissions: 168g/km
Performance: 0-60mph 11.2s / Top Speed 112mph
Fuel Consumption: (urban) 28mpg / (extra urban) 61.4mpg / (combined) 42.8mpg
Safety: twin airbags, ABS with EBD
Dimensions: length 3905 width 1710 height 1420mm
ITS NAME IS NEO AND IT’S UNDER TEN GRAND
Our Rating: 7.1 / 10
Proton’s status as an up and coming manufacturer is well deserved but you can only stay ‘up and coming’ for so long. Sooner or later, the Malaysian mark will have to come up with something really good. Could the Satria Neo be it? Steve Walker aims to find out over the course of a long term test
Proton is always at pains to remind everybody who’ll listen that it owns British sportscar manufacturer Lotus. As a result, the Malaysian maker has unfettered access to the Norfolk-based firm’s industry-leading chassis engineering expertise. Still, it’s never gone this far before. Taking pride of place in the left-hand corner of the tailgate on our Satria Neo 1.6 GSX is a shiny black plaque bearing the legend ‘Handling By Lotus’. Conjuring up associations with the string of razor sharp driver’s cars that have emerged from Lotus’ Hethel HQ in recent years, this instantly gives this sporty Proton supermini a whole lot to live up to.
Our long term stint with the Satria started in promising fashion with a glimpse of the car’s purposeful frontage as it pulled up in the car park. If the Satria Neo is a supermini with sportscar pretensions, it’s certainly got the styling element taped with a low stance and narrow coupe-like glass house. It represents a pronounced break from the current trend for larger, frumpier designs in this sector. If anything, there’s a hint of Audi A3 in the profile.
The best view has got to be straight down the nose, the one you see as the Neo crops up in your rear view on a twisty back road. Here, the beady headlamp clusters and letter box grille show real menace, ably assisted by the flared wheelarches and the large central air-intake in the under bumper. This is one of the better-looking superminis, no question, but the clean aggression in the basic shape is let down slightly by some off key detailing. The curvy-spoked alloy wheel design looks fussy and if I wanted one of those fake aluminium racing fuel filler caps on my car, I’d buy one for £10 from Halfords. The modest roof spoiler is just about acceptable, though the other aftermarket-style add-ons could be easily be replaced with smarter items.
Inside is where you’d expect the Satria Neo to stumble a bit. In the past, it often seemed that Proton was single-handily keeping the world’s flimsy grey plastic industry afloat but more recent models have shown promise. Effort has obviously been put in with the Neo and there are some very nice touches but too many of the materials look and feel substandard and the old grey colour scheme is very much in evidence.
The fascia is neatly sculpted with the rather uninteresting dials housed in a binnacle that bulges upwards not once but twice, coming dangerously close to resembling a pair of those Mickey Mouse ears in the process. The display illuminates blue when the lights are on, making everything far more interesting on the eye. The highlight of the interior has to be the neat centre console with the vertically-stacked ventilation controls and the large square buttons below a tastefully integrated Blaupunkt CD stereo. The small cubby holes on either side are oddly shaped and don’t do a great job of hanging on to keys or loose change but a wallet seems to wedge in there quite nicely, provided you’re not too flush with cash. The quality of materials here is quite impressive with some nice finishes used but this centre section must have accounted for more than its fair share of the budget.
The fake Allen key bolts seen on the fuel filler cap crop up again on the steering wheel, the air vents and the gear lever surround, to questionable effect. The driving position is reasonable with the firm seatbacks and side bolsters giving good support. The roof is low, however, and anyone much over six feet tall or with a voluminous hairdo will wish that the seat dropped a lot more than it does.
The rear bench is really only a two person affair and dignified access to it is only really available from the passenger’s side. Although the driver’s seat tilts forward, it doesn’t slide, so you’ve got to be pretty lithe to squeeze yourself in via this route. Once you’re in the back, t