KUALA LUMPUR, June 1 — Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad again showed his love for national carmaker Proton today, after nearly half of its stake was sold to China’s Geely last week.
Responding to claims that he did not even drive a Proton car despite championing the marque that he helped set up in 1983, Dr Mahathir said he regularly drives Proton cars himself to test their capabilities.
“I was the ‘chief tester’ of all Proton cars, when it was developed and marketed. I always use Proton cars for tests, and I drive all Proton cars each weekend myself.
“It’s different when going to the office, when I use other cars, I sit at the back, I’m not the driver. For Proton cars, I want to drive it myself,” the former prime minister said in a “live” interview broadcasted on his official Facebook account.
The former Proton chairman said he still has a modified Proton car that he tests weekly.
“I go up to Genting Highlands driving a car that uses a small engine, not an Accord engine, and I found that this engine functioned well enough,” the 91-year-old said, referring to the Honda Accord model that becomes the platform for the latest Proton Perdana model.
“I personally test all Proton cars on the test track and outside,” he reiterated.
Dr Mahathir also denied that he had previously attempted to sell Proton to China’s Geely, clarifying that he had merely explored possible collaboration opportunities to improve the quality of cars it manufactured.
“First of all, it’s not true. I went to visit Geely’s factory together with Syed Mokhtar. This happened after I retired and I became adviser to Proton and we were finding ways to further improve our car,” he said, referring to tycoon Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar Al-Bukhary whose company is a major shareholder of Proton’s parent firm DRB-Hicom.
“One of the methods was to change the engine and [for] engine we found that Geely had bought over Volvo and Volvo is an engine expert. I had also went to Sweden to try Volvo’s cars and then after that I went to Geely.”
Dr Mahathir said the visit was carried out while he still held an official position in Proton and not when he was still the country’s fourth prime minister.
“We wanted to know what kind of cooperation we can carry out with Geely. Just like previously where I agreed to have a cooperation with Volkswagen, and we sought for other carmakers to improve the performance of Proton,” he further added in the interview.
A key symbol of Dr Mahathir’s push for the industrialisation of Malaysia, Proton came under the private ownership of the DRB-Hicom group in 2012 but was still known as a national carmaker.
Dr Mahathir had served as adviser to Proton after he retired in 2003 from his 22-year career as prime minister, and was appointed as chairman to Proton Holdings Bhd in 2014.
Shortly after the government terminated his position as adviser to national oil firm Petronas, Dr Mahathir had on March 31 last year announced his resignation as Proton Holdings Bhd chairman and from three government posts.
Despite having left his official role in Proton for several years, Dr Mahathir had last week showed that he still harboured deep feelings for the company that he dubbed the “child of my brain”.
Lamenting the sale of a 49.9 per cent stake in Proton to Chinese automaker Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, Dr Mahathir had said he could no longer be proud of the car brand which he claimed no longer belonged to Malaysia even if he predicted great success for it.
Following the deal between Proton parent DRB-Hicom and Geely, Second Finance Minister Datuk Seri Johari Abdul Ghani had however said that Proton would remain a national car and a source of pride as DRB-Hicom still holds the majority stake at 50.1 per cent.
