With the announcement that the Proton S70 sedan has entered production and its order books have opened, many may be aware that the C-segment sedan is based on an existing Geely model.
What may not (yet) be common knowledge is that the S70 is based on the Emgrand, a Geely BMA platform-based B-segment model sold in the Philippines rival to the likes of the Toyota Vios and the Honda City. The S70 therefore, is not a model based on the Geely Preface or Xing Rui, despite earlier confusion that presumed the S70 is to be based on that car.
That confusion arose from the Emgrand-based Proton that was previously thought to be named S50. A theoretical, larger Proton sedan was visually rendered by Theophilus Chin, and so that larger car, then thought to be named ‘S70’, was imagined to be based on the Geely Preface/Xing Rui that is on Geely’s Compact Modular Architecture (CMA) platform.
Geely Preface-based rendition of Proton Perdana replacement by Theophilus Chin
Now that the S70 nameplate has in fact been confirmed ahead of its unveiling, a sedan larger than the S70 would mean stepping up to a larger number, and so the odd-multiple-of-10 convention so far used by Proton means the next step in the progression would be ‘S90’. That would present a naming issue as an S90 already exists courtesy of Volvo, and even if Proton broke with convention, so does an S80, for that matter.
The positioning of the S70 as a C-segment car means that any Preface/Xing Rui-based Proton model would be a D-segment model, however that may be academic as the D-segment category has been shrinking amid the market’s growing appetite for SUVs, and that Perdana replacement is therefore unlikely to materialise.
The post Proton S70 is based on Geely Emgrand, not Preface appeared first on Paul Tan’s Automotive News.
