Months after the disposal of my Proton Putra, I was looking for another car which would help keep my pocket heavy again. The many expenses of the Putra have put a big hole in my pocket. Now, I have brought a Proton Savvy.

Proton has made many inferior cars in the past with designs taken from Mitsubishi and their own designs of Gen-2s. However, Savvy proves to be a much better car than anticipated. When I first decided to buy the Savvy, I told myself that this is the car that I am going to have to “suffer” with for the next 3 years or so.

Kuala Lumpur is one of the worst places to travel around during the morning and the evenings. The morning and evening jams will leave most of us either banging our heads on the steering wheel or surrender any hope of going home early. The Savvy is equipped with the basic necessity for an everyday Malaysian that encounters these jams. It has a good CD player with four (4) speakers, a good air-conditioner, semi-bucket seats and even mirror for the ladies to do their make-up. However, for some unknown reason, I have no idea why there is no mirror on the passenger side, does it mean that the guys get to look at his stylish hairstyles while their girlfriend or wife looks in jealousy. I guess the designer must be hoping that their other half will kill them by the end of the day from the use of the car.

The semi-bucket seats are a good idea for a car that rolls quite a lot. I brought mine to Kg. Gajah to test out the car, thanks to TK, the organizer who allowed me a few laps for free. I drove it below 3k RPM (Still running in) and found the semi-bucket seats were able to keep me in a rather relaxing position even while turning the car at high speed and in the wrong gear. <Ok, it’s harder to drive fast with a limit of 3k RPM you know!> It is under these conditions that I realized that the Putra would have handled much smoother. The Savvy has more body roll but as the car is shorter, it was able to make the sharp turnings a little less technical. One could just swipe the car left and right over the chicanes and still be able to maintain the speed. However, right off the main straights, you will notice the lack of speed compared to bigger cars.

The acceleration of the Savvy is quite nice compared to many cars of similar specs. Compared to my old Wira 1.3, the Savvy could touge (hill climb) much better. Testing it in Camerons, the car could really climb for a 1.2 liter car, even at 3k RPM, the car can climb about 20 degrees. Not bad. Again, this was tested when I was running in the engines.

With the increasing oil prices, there is little doubt of a petrol price raise as early as next year. Many ways could be used to counter this huge increase in petrol price, you could car pool with a bunch of overly good smelling people (or bad smelling people if you are working in certain industry), take the bus with lots of weird people or buy a car that has low fuel consumption. The Savvy is one of those car with a lower than average fuel consumption. Despite the fact that manufacturers always overstate the fuel consumption in their brochures, the Savvy did do a 6.5l/100km (5.3l/100km in Proton’s brochure) in the busy streets of KL and 5.5l/100km for my long trip to Ipoh. Great thing, now I can plan to buy every other thing I wanted that I couldn’t afford with my old car.

Many of us would like to afford a BMW or a Mercedes because of the spacious interior and its comfortable ride. Well, the Savvy offers neither. While the leg space and the overhead is good, the car lacks boot space. The seats can be moved to provide additional boot space but the transformation (Yup, like transformers.) will turn the car into a two-seater with 4 doors. Handling is an issue here, the car rolls like mad (maybe that’s why there is a need for the semi-bucket seats). Even with good control over the car, passengers and drivers alike will feel the “roller coaster” feeling while driving fast. Under heavy braking, you can definitely see everyone inside trying to push themselves up (funny sight nevertheless).

So, if you want a car that’s cheap, (RM37,000 for the mid-line, which comes with basic accessories) you can be sure Savvy is a good choice for us budget driver. However, if you are a hardcore driver in need for speed or a driver that likes to sit in a comfy sofa like car, go buy yourself something else to pamper your everyday needs. The Savvy is a good choice for city commuters and small families.