Proton Persona will be on sale in March 2008

The new Proton Persona will be making its debut at the 2008 Melbourne Motor Show in February next year but Proton have decided to give us a sneak peak anyway.

The Persona is based on the Proton’s Gen2 Hatch platform and is powered by Proton's very own Campro 1.6 litre engine with 82kW and 120 Nm of Torque. A choice of either a five speed manual or four speed automatic transmission will be available.

The Persona will initially be available in seven colours, including, Blueberry tea, Light gold, Tranquillity black, Metal grey, Solid red and Solid white.

Launched three months ago in Malaysia the Proton Persona has proven popular with more than 20,000 being sold since being launched, boosting the company's market share on the back of strong sales.

The Chairman of Proton Holdings Dato' Mohammed Azlan Hashim, said the strong response from Malaysian buyers signalled a vote of confidence in the changes Proton has made to the way it is doing business in its home land and believes it will also boost Proton's sales in export markets such as Australia.

The push for quality is on at Proton and they are pleased with their placing in the latest JD Power customer satisfaction survey where they posted the greatest improvement of any marque.

The Persona will join Proton's existing Australian model line-up including Savvy, Jumbuck , Satria and Gen2 when it goes on sale in March of 2008. There will only be one high spec model available that is expected to include an impressive list of standard equipment. Exact pricing is not known yet but Proton have suggested it will be somewhere in the “mid-teens” .

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