With the first round of the Asia Pacific Rally Championship kicking off this weekend, Proton is busy carrying out shakedowns for their Mellors Elliot Motorsports-prepped Satria Neo S2000 is Sepang and they invited us to experience the car in the hands of their ace pilots, Alister McRae and Chris Atkinson.
The car continues to wear the same bright yellow livery but even from the outside there are some obvious changes to the car. The windows have all been changed to perspex and the bonnet now has cutouts for quick adjustments to the team's all-new Reiger suspension system.
Video of the car in action after the jump
We had the privilege of riding the car in its first year here three years ago and we can report that the Satria Neo S2000 is not such a boneshaker anymore, the Reiger suspenders give the car something like 160mm extra travel and the result is a car that is far more stable and predictable.
The wheels may be pounding the uneven oil palm estate service roads but the car is sitting steady atop the new spring and damper units.
The car now has new cams and exhaust system and the improved breathing has resulted in 30 extra lb ft of torque, it mow cranks out just over 300lb ft of twisting force.
The engine is normally aspirated so you can hear the driver working it to the redline most of the time unlike turbo cars which don't need the revs exiting some corners as the torque is delivered early thanks to forced induction.
Everyone seems confident that the car will do well in Johor Baru, I certainly hope this is the case because Proton is bringing down a busload of journos to cover the rally this weekend.
The team has done a lot of winter testing and even conducted a reliability test covering 350 miles, and the car passed without a glitch.
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