IDRIVEACLASSIC reviews: 80s Proton Saga (Black Knight) LAST ONE LEFT!

i am so excited to announce that idrava classic is now sponsored by adrian flux one of the uk's leading classic car insurers if you're looking for classic car insurance i've popped a link to adrian flux in the description box below hi guys it's steph from idriver classic and today i'm back and we're filming something that we've never done before we're doing protons but not one proton we're doing two protons we've got this one as well so this is going to be a two part video so this sunday you're going to see this proton and next sunday you're going to see that proton they're both a 1.5 but they're very very different and the best bit of all they're the only surviving examples there's only one of these and there's only one of these so in my eyes this is probably going to be one of the most exciting eye drama classic tests so let's take this one out for a spin we have never featured a proton on i drive a classic before so before i tell you all about this absolutely gorgeous car and something that's quite special as well i wanted to tell you a little bit about proton as a brand because if like me you don't know too much i wanted to fill in that gap so proton although massive in malaysia are a relatively new to market automotive manufacturer and they weren't founded until may 1983. the company was founded as malaysia's first step into automotive and the name is an acronym of perusahan automobile national which translates into english as the national automobile company and if you're watching from malaysia i apologize profusely if my pronunciation was off there but i don't speak malaysian now as we'll come to later the company first started life creating cars which were essentially rebadged mitsubishi cars although since the year 2000 proton have actually stepped into the world of non-badged engineered cars which is really nice because sometimes we talk about automotive brands on here and it almost feels like they've not really stepped forward or they've disappeared so it's really exciting to talk to you about proton that have actually not only come from somewhere in the 80s of doing re-badged cars but are now going from strength to strength so where did proton come from so the concept of proton was the result of the malaysian government in 1979 who felt that it was crucial to create a national car to help enhance the malaysian industry and in fact thousands of people today are employed by proton so it's a massive employer in malaysia and it is also a pretty hefty car brand nowadays but you may not know that if you're watching from the uk because we don't actually sell protons here anymore but proton have been so successful for malaysia and so successful in the automotive industry that proton and malaysia have gone from non-existing in the early 1980s through to today where proton has put malaysia on the map and malaysia is so far on the map that it's one of only 11 countries globally which have full-scale automotive capability that's massive so in the last 40 years malaysia has not only launched its automotive industry it's a pretty key player as well so let's talk about the car we're testing here today because if you've never seen one of these before i'm not surprised because this is the only one left in existence and it's the proton saga black knight edition and it's really interesting because the proton saga was the car which first put proton on the map and was the first successful tie-in between mitsubishi and proton so let me tell you a little bit about the saga so the saga is based on the 1983 lancer fiore and was the first car well was the first of the protons to be powered by the 1.3 mitsubishi orion engine 4g13 and the saga was a massive success and it was such a success in fact that proton couldn't meet the demand and they sold so well that by 1986 three years after launch the 1.3 proton occupied over 60 percent of the domestic market share in the below 1600 cc segment so that's huge now the car we're testing today isn't that early 1.3 it's actually a 1.5 and it's powered by the 1.5 mitsubishi 4g 15 engine and now when they launched the 1.3 in the saga they slightly re-jigged the back end as well so if you've seen a 1.3 before you'll probably notice the back end of this is slightly different now the 1.5 allowed proton to then enter the uk market because they had a really strong offering and so with that they came to the uk and they not only launched the saga saloon they launched the hatchback as well and it was a generally positive reception because you got a really good car for your money and it was priced really competitively as well and the uk market loved it so much that proton then got the accolade of the fastest selling make of new car ever to enter the united kingdom but here's where it gets interesting because the black knight edition that we're testing today is a uk special edition so it wasn't available anywhere else it was only for the uk market and with only one example remaining this makes today's test drive something we will never ever be able to replicate so the black knight as we're testing here today is based on the ordinary spec proton saga 8 valve 1.5 gl and is marked as just a special edition although when i did some digging online i did spot a comment saying it's the aero back with additional extras but i haven't been able to confirm this so the special features on the black knight are ironically the gum metal gray paint so yes it's not actually black the decals on the side and on the boot and the unusual wheel trims which i am going to put a disclaimer in and tell you that we only put the wheel trims on for the walk around because they are impossible to get because of them only being on 201 cars we can't get any to replace it so they were only put on for the walk around today so i hope that's okay for everybody now if you like a fact or two this is where it gets interesting so there were only over 201 of these cars ever made and this is the only surviving example and for those of you that like to drill down right into fact the company who made the spoilers and the decals were called silver knight which may or may not be linked to the name of the vehicle it's sometimes really hard to clarify smaller details like this when a car is so rare even at launch and even rarer today now i believe with there being 201 each dealership was only ever given one or two so i wanted to tell you a little bit about this particular car which we're testing today so it was registered in 1989 and then it was garaged in 1993 until the early 2000s which kind of might explain why it's in such nice condition and it survived this long and in fact it's the earliest proton left in the uk and was originally sold by new park motors in crew which i believe still exists today there's a lot to show you here today but before all that let's meet the owner john so this is my proton 1.5 gl black knight uh it is the last of its kind there were 201 made and each dealer uh got one of them uh as a sort of special edition to sell and this is the last one out of 201 for some reason one remains um it's actually my second proton i think steph will be covering another one of mine very shortly however today we'll talk about this it is a 1989 1.5 gl and it has covered just over 13 000 miles in its lifetime it's a bog standard model the gl uh no power steering no air con manual windows however the black knight edition got you some optional fantastic extras which were wheel trims trims down the side and a spoiler yes special edition um that is particularly the difference between the gl uh and the gl black knight the trims the wheel trims which weren't even made by proton and uh and that's it and so i bought this as an addition i had another one which is one that you're going to see as well which is a 1.5 se le and for some reason i fell in love with them i like the rarity of them and the story behind them made me smile my girlfriend hates them which is also another motivation behind me putting so much passion into them now that we've had a look around the outside and we've got a brief peek on the inside i wanted to talk you through the dash so if you've ever looked at a mid 1980s mitsubishi cult this probably won't look too dissimilar because well it's exactly the same now for a bass spec car i didn't really have much expectation because for me when i think of a bass spec car and you think of what was britain really expecting in the 1980s and for this to come in and how does that compete this offers a lot more and in my opinion the plastic and the finish on it as well is far better quality so of course we're going to start over this side and we'll walk you through so first of all we are going to look at these door cards now you probably have noticed that the finish and the interior on this car is absolutely immaculate so it's worth mentioning at this point that not only is this the only one left it's also a premium example because when the current owner bought it it still had the plastic on the back seats so tom who's filming for me today is the very first person to ever sit in the back seat of this car and we didn't even know until he sat down so we come across from these door cards which are beautifully unmarked and we come across to the glove box now one of my biggest complaints of cars is lack of storage especially in this era so not only do we have a door pocket we have a pocket underneath a glove box we also have a pretty sizable glove box as well that has plenty of room in it now as we come into the center we almost forget that we're dealing with a base spec because there's a lot of things that are standard on this that i wasn't expecting number one is this clock so it's just a standard quartz clock built-in analog we come through we've got the heater controls which i'm gonna test when we're driving because they are so loud and for me i think i was actually quite taken aback they are very loud now as we come down we've got our cigar lighter there we've got a rear d mist and again it's these little bits on this car which for me really mark it out as being an excellent example of what a bass spec really is we come down to our cassette radio and of course our ashtray now with this being such a beautiful example it didn't surprise me to see that this ashtray hasn't been used there's a lot of storage space in this car and it's really really well laid out and we've got lots of legroom as well it's look i'll be completely honest it's really really surprised me i didn't know what to expect i thought it was going to be pretty average but so far i'm remarkably impressed with what we get for a bass spec model and then we look down at our controls now this is pretty fun it's a really nice little layout and over here we've got our wipers so we flick up and we've got intermittent we've got the first speed and the second speed so again that's pretty good i know a lot of you at home sitting watching thinking well my modern car does everything but back in the 80s these are the things that really mattered now over on this side we've got our lights so we're coming to off and side i really like these controls they feel quite durable quite sturdy and then we have one stalk which is great and we've also got our indicators there as well now over here and we're coming to kind of the end of what we've got in here we've also got the hazard warning lights and down here we've got our fog light switch as well so all in all it's pretty basic but we've also got all the fundamentals that we need for a pleasant driving experience now one of the other things that i will point out is because this is a base spec we have got what some people know as keep fit windows look when there's less electrical stuff there's less less to go wrong now let me show you this gearbox because i've already taken this car for a drive sorry and um one of the things that's really blown me away is what a smooth gearbox it is now i know that we are dealing with a car that's only on around 13 000 miles but this gearbox is in my opinion on par with some of the modern stuff that i've driven we've actually got a five-speed box on this which is quite a treat so when we're coming up into gear and as i said it's so smooth let's go first down into second across up into third down into fourth across up into fifth and then the nice thing about reverse on this is quite often you've got to lift them but with this we just push it all the way along down and that takes us into reverse and then we come back to neutral we're going to get this car started up so let's give it a go it's remarkably quiet actually from inside the cabin so give it a little rev so you can hear what i'm talking about now let's have a listen from the outside [Applause] now as we drive along i'm going to take you through the gearbox so we're setting off in first and the roads around here are pretty rural so it's going to be probably a little bit of a challenge to get up into fifth but um i'm going to try and show you regardless so as we come up into fifth gear you're probably thinking to yourself as i did wow this is a car that's really well put together and really well thought out but guess what it's not really an accident because the proton as we tested today the 1.5 is sporting a mitsubishi engine but that's not where mitsubishi's influence ends on this car and in fact if you've ever seen a mitsubishi lancer think about the 1985 model this car probably looks very familiar so it's kind of probably a little bit pertinent now to mention where proton and mitsubishi lie so the prime minister of malaysia said we need a car of the people which is roughly what proton translates as into english and they came out with the proton now of course they recognized as many good manufacturers have in times before that they didn't really have the technology to do justice as car of the people so they went to various manufacturers and one of the manufacturers they spoke to was mitsubishi who said actually we're happy to do that but guess what we've got a lot of lancer stuff left so uh i guess you're going to be doing a proton that's basically an answer but i've never tested a lancer before and for me as someone who's coming into proton with no expectation this car is fabulous it does exactly what it says on the tin it's not a car which you look at and well in today's world just you would look at and you think wow i haven't seen one of those in ages but at the time it would have really blended into that 1980s going to that 1990s car park it's not a standout car but as soon as you get behind the wheel you start to see the value in the car now quite interestingly this was very cheap to buy at the time it was 7 000 pounds which was a bit of a double-edged sword because it meant that the car was very popular a lot of people could afford it a lot of people like them and in fact if you went for the base spec that wasn't the dark knight is for testing here today i think it was around that 6 000 pound mark um which meant that a lot of people could buy into it it also meant that it came into that same category as your metro and various other cards that were cheap to buy like a micra and it falls into banger racing it falls into cheap motoring that people don't look after and also on top of that they rotted quite quickly as well which means that whilst the proton as we're testing here today was a very very good car there aren't many left and in fact of course this is the only one of its kind left which out of 201 it's pretty sad because if you think about something like the minor million of which i think there were 200 349. there are still so many more of those left i think one in five compared to something like this which was manufactured at the end of the 1980s so of course i've been telling you that it's lovely to drive so why is it lovely to drive well so number one for a budget car i'm getting a really good driving experience out of it to say that it's got no parasitic steering you don't really feel that until you start trying to reverse it or turn it into a parking space at which point you think gosh i wish i'd paid a little bit extra for that power steering because this is a heavy motor to turn around into a space and it's not it's not the most fun trying to get into a space when you're having to rack that wheel round and in fact it was very very heavy um but that would probably be my only criticism because as we drive it along the steering is light enough it's not so light that you feel like you've got no control over the car and it's not so heavy that it takes away from the driving experience now as we come around this bend you'll see that the steering is very responsive and barely having to turn the wheel and in fact there is virtually no play in the steering wheel at all compared to a lot of other cars from the 1980s and with that reliable 1.5 mitsubishi engine under the bonnet we're not only keeping up with traffic but it's quite a tidy little engine as well which is seen as quite reliable and if you think about where this was sitting in the market so a budget car that you know everybody could afford this was offering quite a good motor experience so as i put my foot down come up into fourth and then need to fit there as well not only is it quite easy to change up through the gears a lot of gearboxes of this era are sometimes a bit clunky or a bit heavy or you know take a bit of guiding in this one is very very painless to drive and it's also quick off the mark as well it's relatively quiet i could listen to a cassette as i drive along keeping in with the aesthetic of the era and i wouldn't have to be cranking it right up to drown out noises knocks and rattles which is something else i should probably mention because this proton has absolutely i don't know if you can hear from the back but certainly at the front i can't hear anything knocking rattling squeaking which in the era of the plastic dash is usually commonplace now it's always a massive tragedy of and especially it's usually down to the scrappage scheme that we don't have a lot of stuff like this left so because of course roundabout when that scrappage scheme came in stuff like this was worth very little so something like this had probably needed 100 200 pounds worth of repairs it would have just been easier to scrap it and buy something else but nowadays there's only one left so what does that mean in terms of parts well of course you've got that mitsubishi connection so much so that when you take parts off this car you see the mitsubishi number stamped on it and also the proton number stamped over the top as well so it's been a pleasure taking you out in this proton today it's been very different it was totally not what i expected at all and it's such a shame that i will never ever get to own something like this because this would be a fantastic hack for going through the motorway as you can feel the suspension is well it's fantastic you know we're not clattering down into bumps it's largely unassuming so it's not a massive standout car but by and large it performs as well as any kind of to me up to maybe the early 2000s in that it does a job and it does it well and really it does everything you need a car to do without being too flash too expensive or taking a chunk out of your wages every month so very sad that we don't have more of these protons over here but well that's what happens when you have a scrappage scheme and everybody is chasing the next best thing so i really hope you've enjoyed this video today it's been a pleasure to show you this proton and don't forget to check our java classic next sunday because we will be testing out the next model up so we get to test out something with maybe a little bit more finesse than no power system steering and winding down the windows ourselves now until next time take care and drive safely

Channel: idriveaclassic

Views: 203,218

Rating: 4.9637074 out of 5

Keywords: proton, proton video, proton saga video, 80s proton, Malaysian car review, 80s proton review, proton revving, proton starting up, proton 1.5 video, proton review, proton road test, proton black knight, proton special edition, proton black knight video, proton last one left, proton uk, proton uk car, proton black knight review, proton saga road test, 1980s proton, oldest proton left, proton black knight road test, proton driving, proton rare edition, proton malaysia

Id: A247mVpTbH8

Length: 24min 30sec (1470 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 20 2020