Adios Gen.2

What a nice drive-by-wire car. Back in February 2004, when the Gen.2 started to roll out from its Proton City assembly line, we waited anxiously to get hold of this car. Attracted to the sporty design, the Gen.2 resembles one of mercedes’ coupe model especially when looking from the rear side. Designed based on ‘minimalist’ concept it looks small but yet muscular and compact.

Knowing that purple Gen.2 will be a rare species, we waited for another two months and it was not until end of July we managed to drive home a brand new Gen.2 after so much hassle from the dealer. Like other proton cars sure Gen.2 has its setbacks like the door handle, power window, exhaust pipe but all these are quite normal to other proton models.

However, we had our bad time also when the fuel  pump beneath the back seat and the clock disc inside the steering wheel got kaput – really unfortunate.

Used as a second car, the farthest it has traveled was to Taiping, during Raya 2006. 5 years on, and barely 46,000 km moving here and there in the otherwise smooth and breakdown free, we decided its time to go separate ways. Monday 2 November was the last time our purple Gen.2 parked at the compound. Snapped up by one family friend on a ‘hire purchase’ agreement, now the main kids-school-fetching-car is demoted to a Wira, for now. Hope it is temporary though, and going upward again is SWIFT.