2013 GMC Acadia Takes a Bow
February 9, 2012 – 2:47 pm | No Comment

Popular crossover benefits from a makeover.
when the GMC Acadia made its debut for the 2007 model year, it immediately sent a message to its full-size crossover competitors that it had arrived. The Honda Pilot and …

Read the full story »
Auto Technology

Car Tips

Car Reviews

Auto Shows

Book Reviews

Home » Auto News

Proton To Use Turkey As European Gateway?

Submitted by on May 7, 2008 – 3:12 am3 Comments

One automaker not receiving much press in the West is Proton, the Malaysian automaker which was at one time being courted by Volkswagen asProton part of a strategic alliance. Proton owns sports car maker Lotus and motorcycle builder MV Agusta, but outside of southeast Asia and a small presence in Britain and Australia, the brand isn’t widely known.

That may all change if the company follows through on plans to build cars in Turkey, a historic bridge between Europe and Asia. Founded in 1982, Proton exports cars to 20 countries and has been desiring to raise production to one million units annually. A facility in Turkey would help Proton increase production while giving the company access to Europe.

Proton is owned 52% by the Malaysian government with private investors in Malaysia and elsewhere holding the remaining shares. The company is also in talks with India’s Argentum Motors to begin producing Proton cars in India.

Although the Volkswagen talks have broken off (for now) and General Motors’ interest in the company has evaporated, Proton could still be ripe for investment by yet another global partner.

Proton first began building cars in 1982, making it the newest of the large automakers in the world.

3 Comments »

Leave a comment!

Add your comment below, or trackback from your own site. You can also subscribe to these comments via RSS.

Be nice. Keep it clean. Stay on topic. No spam.

You can use these tags:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

This is a Gravatar-enabled weblog. To get your own globally-recognized-avatar, please register at Gravatar.