Proton is the sort of company you can have a little chuckle over, before you realise that it is entirely serious and plans to sell that car at that price. It's like one of those TV talent show contestants who fully believe they can sing, and won't listen to friendly advice from that nice panel of experts. Year after year they return for further humiliation and no-one can quite understand why.
At first glance the Proton doesn't seem that bad - just looking at the Gen2 you would think that the Malaysian company had made progress. It's neat-looking, if not quite up to the stylish standards that European consumers demand.
The closer you get to the car, though, the more that illusion starts to fade. Even the key feels like it will break in your hand, such is the impressively thorough poor build quality. On our test car there were panels that hadn't been properly fitted or had just fallen off, jagged plastic trim throughout and such grim brittle plastics used for the dashboard you felt it might melt if you left the car in the sun for too long.
The seats were reasonably comfortable, but the lack of adjustability and strange seating position means that tall drivers will end up feeding the wheel between their legs, which just isn't on in this day and age. In fact, it has been a long day or age since it was acceptable. You'll want to try and find the most comfortable seating position possible before someone tells you the price, because the Gen2 starts at £9,000 and goes up to £12,000.
On paper the 1.6-litre engine should be good, with an impressive 110bhp, but it's so unrefined and thrashy that you'll go as slowly as possible just to give your ears a rest. The suspension is reasonable, and the steering and gearbox are OK too, although it could just be relative.
The Gen2 is a throwback to the bad old days of the early 1980s, when British Leyland was mashing cars together and they were falling apart ten minutes out of the factory - you can scarcely believe not only that someone would build such a car, but that they would be willing to sell it.
Depreciation is catastrophic, so if you're willing to pay the ridiculous asking price you won't get much of it back if you can persuade anyone to buy the car off you.