Born from rallying, the Proton Wira 1.8EXi DOHC

Back in the days when Proton was active in rallying and achieving good result on the hands on the Malaysia rally driver Karamjit Singh or the Flying Sikh as he is known.

This car was born as a result of homologation by FIA to have 2500 unit being sold to the public for the car to be eligible to rally. This limited edition car, the Proton Wira 1.8EXi DOHC came around 1995 equipped with a 1.8 litre engine, a stitch weld chassis and uprated suspension with all round disc brakes with ABS.

The engine is a 4G93P that features a displacement of 1834cc (bore and stroke = 81mm x 89mm), multipoint injection with a compression ratio of 10.5:1 and have a maximum output of 138bhp@6500rpm with maximum torque of 167nm@5500rpm.

This is the most powerful and aggressive Proton ever built and it's quite a formidable performer both in the track, rallying and on the streets. A total of 2500 unit is built with 2450 unit being the road going version and the remaining 50 unit being the RS(Rally Spec). The road going version had a better interior with a pair of Recaro bucket seats, MOMO steering and gearknob with a Siemens ECU and the RS comes with a very basic interior without bucket seat, no power window and a MMC ECU that enable the engine to rev till the max of 9000rpm.

As the car comes with a stiffer chassis, it's very popular to see a unit being swapped with a more powerful engine such as the 4G63T from the Mitsubishi Galant VR4 and Lancer Evolution so finding a stock unit now is consider impossible.

This car is consider a piece of Malaysian automotive history especially Proton and I do hope one day Proton will make a car like this again.

The car from rallying

The road going version

The RS version

The powerplant of the car, the 4G93P