The Proton S70 has now been sighted once again, courtesy of these images which have been submitted anonymously by a paultan.org reader.
Here, two units of the C-segment sedan – which we now know by its confirmed name, as opposed to the rumoured “S50” – have been sighted without the bodykit of the cars previously seen testing in public. As such, these could be a version of the S70 in a lower trim variant, though these continue to feature LED projector headlamps; the X90 SUV employs LED reflector headlamps.
Omission of bodykit aside, these units appear to also wear the two-tone, machined finished alloy wheels as seen on the earlier, bodykitted examples of Proton’s upcoming sedan.
The decision to call this model the S70 appears logical, as Proton aims to position this car in the C-segment, thus being a category above that of the B-segment Persona. Using the brand’s SUV models as a parallel, using the -70 suffix would line up with the C-segment X70, as compared to the X50 which is a B-segment model.
In May, we published an article explaining why we thought the upcoming would be called the S70, rather than the S50. While the Geely Emgrand that the S70 is based on is sold with a 114 PS/147 Nm 1.5 litre naturally aspirated four-cylinder engine in China, the car’s BMA that is shared with the Proton X50 means the sedan could also use the 1.5 litre turbocharged three-cylinder engine from the B-segment SUV.
Proton has typically priced its models against cars of the segment below, such as the Toyota Vios that starts from RM90k and goes to RM95k, and the Honda City that is priced from RM85k to RM110k (including a hybrid variant).
Given the Preve, which the S70 will succeed, started from RM70k, it could be in this ballpark that the S70 is positioned, though with its debut expected some time in November, its pricing will be known for certain in due course.
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