ofey wrote:We talked about this at the last VIC meet. Very disappointing for Lancer owners in Malaysia.
2 thoughts:
1. Wonder if buying waja spares will be cheaper?
2. Wonder if any of those in M'sia buying a waja will debadged and rebadge as a Mitsu?
1. Spares should be cheap if they are locally assembled/built (labour is cheap and minimal transport costs).
2. Yes. There are so many Wiralutions and Wajalutions it's not funny. That being said some of them would eat the pants off my Evo (I've sat in 4G63's before; and they are strpiped and lightweight too compared to their Evo origins).
Also too lazy to comment on tjoz's post. It's basically a deal which Mitsu have with Proton to sell them their designs/etc to allow Proton to locally build/assemble models. Most of the local manufacturers have some sort of technology sharing agreement. Foreign import vehicles have massive taxes and hence manufacturers are incentivised to participate in such schemes so that they can still earn some revenue (i.e. royalties). The other option is to establish local assembly operations in Malaysia (or Thailand) but that is both costly and possibly not worthwhile.
That being said, MB now assemble their (current) S500 locally to MB standards so some manufacturers do see potential. But even then, it's RM1mil which is stil more exp than Aus.
:(:(:(:(
