RE: Shed of the Week: Proton Persona GTI

[BigMon]

One of my mates had one when I had my Lupo GTI in the early 2000s.

I quite liked it. It had very nice recaros and the engine made a lovely noise.

I seem to remember getting parts for it, even back then, was troublesome. He had real issues getting hold of an exhaust.

[soad]

aaron_2000 said:

I actually quite like those wheels, they remind me of Speedline ST2's.

What about the rest of it?

[mooseracer]

So the seller doesn't even know what kind of car he's selling - that's bad enough. Pistonheads doing a bit of cutting and pasting and not knowing what it actually is, is piss poor.

By all accounts a great car to drive - just not for £1500

[Jayho]

Ahh my neighbour had one of these when I had my Ignis sport, was always a little envious of it. I loved my Suzuki but also wanted his proton. Couple of times we met on the back road on the way home and both exited our cars with big grins as we'd have been making some good fun progress. Great shed imo

[kellyt]

Dear God, no.

[J4CKO]

looks like the generic starter car from the PC game "Live For Speed", not grabbing me otherwise for £1500.

[Mr R]

As a previous owner I can confirm some posters suspicions that these are not actually that good. Never felt like a true 140hp and in my opinion most of the car's 'handling prowess' just came from the big wheel & tyre combo. Other hot hatches of the time (Clio 172, Peugeot GTIs, Saxo VTS etc.) were vastly superior in my experience.

[sjabrown]

These Protons have a bit of a following in the road rally world, I think due to good handling and some Mitsu Evo bits bolt on.

[tedman]

I had Mitsubishi Colt (1995 CA chassis) that the Proton was based on back in the early 00's. I had the 1.6 engine which was pretty quick enough for a young'un like me at the time. Handled terribly though. The 1.6 has 111bhp and IIRC did 0-60 in under 9 seconds. The car also weighed ~900kg.

[steveb8189]

Screechmr2 said:

i thought proton went to the wall, so did kia until hyundai bailed them out. i wanted one of these as a runabout a few years back but could never find one near me

Didn't proton own Lotus until about 6 months ago?

[Limpet]

Engine runs the other way like a Honda, then?

Can't find much else of note here, to be honest.

[hondansx]

I think we need a geek out to sort this mess.

I have never known this car as a Persona GTI. As far as I'm concerned, it is the Satria GTI.

I can see Wikipedia states that the hatchback on which the GTI is based on was initially named a Persona Compact. It then became the Satria in 2000. To weaken my argument, the car in the OP is claiming to be from 1999.

Richard Hammond doesn't help matters - he just refers to it as either a Proton, or a GTI:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=To3oV62mEWs

As does Tiff:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_06v4jgAUJk

However, you can find loads of Google search results based upon the Satria GTI and absolutely nothing about the 'Persona GTI'. I do however remember the Persona Coupe.

I'm by no means a Proton expert, but growing up in the '90s into my cars I would confidently say I am a basically an expert witness for any hot hatch related matters.

As far as I'm aware, the Mitsubishi Colt was pretty much the same car? I remember in the Max Power and Fast Car days that Mitsubishi engine conversions and bumper swaps were quite common.

Just found some crazy ones in this video!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbqvY3_1i5Y

[culpz]

These look a little bit like the 206 GTI. I'm sure there were a few on here that had one in the past and seemed to enjoy them. It's definitely a left-field choice and something different. My main issue with them is servicing/maintaining them. Do they have specialists for the Proton brand? Does the Lotus chassis involvement mean expensive parts?

I couldn't look past a Clio 172 for the money and the performance. The seven-second 0-60 dash is more like 8 seconds (7.8 to be exact), which is the difference between a hot-hatch and a warm one. Unless, of course, the Proton's numbers were fairly understated? If i got one, i'd probably spend most of the time wishing i'd bought the Renault, if i'm honest.

[MadDog1962]

Yeah the handling is actually very good, and the performance and reliability are decent.

What's completely lacking is any feel good factor. The trim in these things is totally rubbish and that dashboard is horrid.

It's basically a badly made Mitsubishi, with lower quality interior trim materials.

It this was 500 quid maybe. But we've seen much nicer sheds for 1500 pounds.

[alorotom]

were these not pennies a couple of years ago or am I imagining that??

I struggle to believe someone would part with £500 for it, never mind £1500! seems an ambitious price for something thats not particularly desirable

[Mr2Mike]

loudlashadjuster said:

helix402 said:

Is the air box open?

Looks like someone replaced the panel filter with a cone but left the intake/resonator connected. Bit odd.

It looks like the standard airbox has a middle "layer" that has been removed in this case.

[sgtBerbatov]

Was this seriously the best sub-£1500 to be found this week?

There are Opel Mantra's hiding in barns for £500 better than this thing.

[xjay1337]

hondansx said:

I think we need a geek out to sort this mess.

I don't think it matters really. We all know what is meant

[rallycross]

hondansx said:

I think we need a geek out to sort this mess.

I have never known this car as a Persona GTI. As far as I'm concerned, it is the Satria GTI.

I Y

This car is a Satria Gti if you live in the UK.

Good handling car, never sold well, the un-pronounceable name never helped did it!

[s m]

Mr R said:

As a previous owner I can confirm some posters suspicions that these are not actually that good. Never felt like a true 140hp and in my opinion most of the car's 'handling prowess' just came from the big wheel & tyre combo. Other hot hatches of the time (Clio 172, Peugeot GTIs, Saxo VTS etc.) were vastly superior in my experience.

They certainly never got anywhere near the stats mentioned in the OP in most of the road tests
People mock stuff like old rwd RS2000s and Manta GTEs for being monolithically slow but they both managed to post faster times to 60 and 100mph than the one Autocar tested. Manta was actually a smudge faster top end as well - the Escort and Manta only had 110bhp so I'd suspect the Proton horses were small ones compared to some others -at the wheels you'd think the Proton should have had considerably more power than a 110bhp rwd car with power draining prop etc

The handling was probably very good but even with that handling and its race-school reputation you can see a lack of pace compared to stuff with less power like the 106 GTi and Saxo VTS on a track



I'd be wanting to have a good look at the rust around the safety mounting points too on this one
I'll put my money into last week's Puma instead