Bookings For The Proton X50 Moving Past 42,000 Units
Plus, you need to wait almost 9 months for delivery right now.
This reminds us of the time when the Proton Wira (Mitsubishi Lancer) was selling faster than the Proton badge, steering, sticker, plastic bits and air-press suppliers could make the badges and parts to stick/install on the Mitsubishi Lancer which was a hugely successful re-badging exercise that brought big profits to Proton and even bigger profits to Mitsubishi Motors who at the time were already selling their next generation Lancer in all markets around the world including Singapore and Thailand.
Launched in May 1993 (priced from RM39k to RM54k), the Wira was a real ‘hero’ product for Proton and still is a very sought after car by car thieves for spare parts as there are still thousands of these well built used Wira’s around the country doing justice for their owner’s day in day out. Please note that a total of almost 953,000 Wira’s were sold.
This means, Malaysian middle class car buyers could see the latest version of the Lancer when visiting our neighbors but with the selling price of Proton Wira much lower than the Nissan Sentra, Mazda 323 and Toyota Corolla SE, there was little convincing needed to be done at all Proton showrooms nationwide.
Proton Wira sales-people only had to take orders and buyers accepted the ever increasing waiting time.
Now comes the success of the Proton X50 crossover. A re-badged and reengineered Geely Bin Yue, this new Proton already has more than 42,000 bookings and waiting time if you order today is about 9 months, which means you order your X50 in 2021 and you collect it in the first quarter of 2022.
So, like with the Proton Wira all those years ago, now we are seeing some slightly used Proton X50’s appearing in the used car classifieds for sale at a selling price that is exactly the same as the current sales tax discount selling price from the showroom. If you do not mind the colour, slight mileage and the fact that your name sits as the second owner, you can drive a high specifications Proton X50 Flagship within a week.
Add to the fact that this Proton X50 has the same engine and almost equal size and safety features as the more expensiveVolvo XC40, this might be a best buy crossover right now.
Our quick check of the used car classifieds for a used X50 showed that there were only a small number for sale and when we called a couple of sellers, their X50’s was already sold.
