UPDATE!!! PRICE inside~

You have seen the facelifted Proton Saga from our Thai Auto Expo 2010 coverage earlier this month, and now it’s the Malaysian market’s turn to get the car. Unveiled by Proton MD Datuk Syed Zainal moments ago, it is officially called the Saga FL.

From the boss’ speech, and the new features, we know that Proton is trying to get the younger crowd to consider the Saga as their first car, urban middle class folks that would otherwise buy a Myvi.

The Blue Rock colour you see here is one of the two new colors (the other is Cafe Latte, a light brown hue), and is the same colour as the Thai show car. There are now two trim lines – Standard and Executive – down from the previous three. Manual (5-speed) and automatic (4-speed) choices are available for both trims, which mean that there are four possible configurations.

Powered by the same 1,332 cc Campro engine with 94 hp and 120 Nm, the Saga FL gets Proton’s new face, which will be sign of things to come. As detailed before, the new exterior consists of new lamps front and rear, new grille, new bumpers on both ends and new design rims. Standard variants ride on 175/70 R13 wheels while Executive FLs use 185/60 R14 rubber.

Most of the new features that the FL gets over the old car is for the Executive. They are dual airbags, steering audio buttons and USB/AUX ports for the Clarion MP3 stereo. New goodies available on both trims are side mirrors with LED signal lamps, rear power windows, rear LED tail lamps. The rest of the Executive-only equipment includes driver’s seat height adjuster, powered wing mirrors, fog lamps and slim rear spoiler.

The new Proton Saga facelift is now available in four different variants – the Standard M/T and A/T as well as the higher spec Executive M/T and A/T, which is one grade level less than the pre-facelift Saga, which was available in N-Line, B-Line and M-Line. Effectively, this means very basic N-Line with the cheapest price tag and the black bumper is not represented in the new line-up.

All models have the front and rear power windows, MP3 function for the audio player, and the side mirrors with LED turn indicators.

What the Executive model adds over the Standard model are the USB and AUX input, the dual front SRS airbags (Standard model doesn’t have any airbags), steering wheel audio switches, driver seat height adjustment, electric door mirrors, fog lamps, rear spoiler, a multipurpose container and side protector moulding. Wheels are alloys wrapped with 180/60R14 on the Executive, and steel wheels wrapped with 175/70R13 on the Standard.

The engine and gearbox remains the same as the pre-facelift Proton Saga for now, however Proton has indicated that they will be rolling out an update to the Campro engine family sometime next year, and this update could include the new Proton Saga. The update will include improvements to the normally aspirated Campro engines as well as add a new turbocharged variant for models like the Proton Exora.

The Saga is available in Solid White, Tranquility Black, Genetic Silver, and two new flours – Cafe Latte and Blue Rock. Our live galleries after the jump are mostly of the two new colours so you’ll know what they look like.

Of course, the most important part are the new prices. Prices have gone up by about RM1,000 to RM1,300 across the board, which is not too bad a jump considering there’s an extra passenger airbag in the airbag-equipped models. In the price comparison, we’ll compare the Standard with the B-Line and the Executive with the M-Line.

Story by Anthony Lim, Danny Tan, Harvinder Sidhu and Paul Tan.

Proton Saga facelift unveiled at Thai Motor Expo 2010 - Paultan

We’re here at the Thai Motor Expo 2010 for some pre-KLIMS motorshow action, where Proton has unveiled the 2011 Proton Saga facelift! Here’s an initial list of changes from what we’re able to tell so far:

The entire front end has pretty much changed from the head lamps, grille, bumper, and even the engine hood sheet metal design. The new engine hood now creases in a way that makes the left and right sides of the hood higher. There’s also a very faint spine in the middle of the hood, where in the pre-facelift Saga it was flat.

The headlamps now appear to use three bulbs instead of the previous two bulb config – we think this means there’s a dedicated bulb for high beam now. The signal lamps have been moved towards the inside of the lamps.

The wing mirrors now have turn signal indicators

The rear end also has significant changes. The tail lamps are new and have LED lighting. There’s a small spoiler on the boot lid, and because of the spoiler design the Saga badge has to be relocated slightly to the left.

The bumper now has a black insert for the diffuser-like design feature, and it’s now wider with reflector lenses and shaped to show off the exhaust muffler and tail pipe, as opposed to the pre-FL Saga which had its rear end designed to hide the exhaust tail pipe.

The 1-DIN Clarion radio looks the same to us (except for the MP3/WMA logos which indicate support for those files), but there are new USB and AUX-in ports which are not integrated into the radio but are instead positioned to the lower right of the radio. This takes up some of the cubby hole space below the radio.

The steering wheel now has audio control buttons, similiar in style to the Satria Neo’s.

The fabric pattern on the door cards and the seats are now of a different design (old one is on the left). The baseline model in Thailand has a yet another different fabric pattern, and the one we are showing above in comparison to the old fabric is the high spec fabric pattern.

There are now rear power window button controls. As for which of the Malaysian car specs will feature rear power windows and which won’t, we’ll have to wait for the Malaysian launch.

There’s a new alloy wheel design, but the tyre size is the same as before – 185/60R14

There’s now the option for a front passenger airbag which takes up the ’tissue box’ holder compartment in the pre-facelift Saga.

These are the only changes we are able to see so far, and we have to note that some of these updates like the USB/AUX function, the extra airbag and the rear power windows could only be for the higher spec models. Four colours are available in Thailand – Solid White, Tranquility Black, Genetic Silver and the new colour you see here which is Blue Rock.

There could be other changes on the mechanical side of things though, which we will probably only be able to find out when we speak to Proton’s engineers in Malaysia. The Thai spec sheet (which you will be able to see after the jump) quotes 70kW and 120Nm, which is the same as the pre-facelift Saga.

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