First Impressions: Proton S70 Prime 1.5 NA first drive - Slow, smooth and still a lot of car for RM59,800

KUALA LUMPUR: The Proton S70 has always had one very obvious strength: performance.

Even the more affordable turbo variants have plenty of shove for a family sedan, so when Proton introduced a naturally aspirated version with a much lower price point and much less power, the immediate question was obvious. Has Proton taken away the bit that made the S70 interesting?

After driving the new Proton S70 Prime 1.5 NA during Proton's recent media drive, the answer is yes and no. Yes, it is noticeably slower. But no, it has not suddenly become a bad S70. In fact, most of the things that made the car easy to like in the first place are still very much there.

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Under the bonnet is a 1.5-litre naturally aspirated four-cylinder engine producing 120 PS and 150 Nm, and that is a big step down from the turbocharged S70. You feel it almost immediately. Put your foot down and there is no strong surge of torque, overtaking takes more planning, and the engine simply needs more time to build speed.

If you floor it from a standstill, the engine also gets quite vocal. The revs rise quickly and you hear plenty of engine roar from the front, but the actual rate of acceleration does not quite match the noise. It sounds busier than it feels fast, which is probably the clearest reminder that this version of the S70 is not about outright performance.

There is no point pretending otherwise. Speed and grunt are not this car’s strong points, and if you are coming from the turbo S70, the difference is substantial. But the longer you drive the NA car, the more you realise that outright performance was only one part of the S70’s appeal.

What has not disappeared is the S70’s suspension tuning. The car still rides very well over typical Malaysian roads, and that remains one of its most likeable qualities. It deals with smaller bumps and rough surfaces with a level of maturity that makes it feel more expensive than its price suggests, while larger undulations do not make the car feel loose or unsettled.

There is still a nice balance between comfort and control, and that alone gives the S70 Prime a more grown-up feel than you might expect from something sitting around the RM60,000 mark. The engine may have changed, but the basic chassis still feels familiar.

The other big advantage is that this is still an S70. You still get the same spacious cabin for a B Segment sedan, useful rear legroom and the general sense of sitting in a fairly substantial sedan. The engine may have been downgraded, but the actual car around it has not suddenly become smaller, harsher or less comfortable.

The seats are still comfortable, the cabin remains reasonably refined and there is enough room in the rear to make it genuinely useful as a family car. So while the engine changes the character of the S70, it does not remove many of the things you interact with every single day.

There is also an important detail with the powertrain. While the naturally aspirated S70 uses the same basic 1.5-litre engine as the latest Proton Saga, Proton has not simply lifted the entire powertrain from its smaller and hot-selling sibling. The CVT is different.

The S70’s CVT uses a torque converter, unlike the Saga’s setup, and the idea is to improve smoothness and predictability when pulling away from a standstill. After driving it, that difference is quite noticeable.

One of the turbocharged S70’s niggles has always been the way its dual-clutch transmission behaves when moving away from a stop. There can be a slight hesitation, and sometimes you need a moment to judge how much throttle it wants before it moves off cleanly.

That issue is largely gone in the NA car. Pulling away from a junction or creeping through traffic is smoother, more natural and easier to judge. You press the accelerator and the car simply moves without making you second-guess what the transmission is about to do.

It sounds like a small thing, but around town it makes the cheaper S70 feel more relaxed and predictable. So Proton may have taken away a lot of performance, but in the process, it has also addressed one of the turbo car’s less likeable characteristics.

Another thing that stood out was how quiet the car becomes once you settle into a cruise. At Malaysia’s national highway speed limit, the engine sits below 2,000 rpm, and at that point the S70 Prime becomes noticeably calm.

There is not much engine noise entering the cabin, and combined with the good ride and decent insulation, it feels surprisingly refined at higher speeds. That is not necessarily what you expect from a relatively basic naturally aspirated powertrain.

The trade-off becomes obvious the moment you ask for more speed. Try to overtake or accelerate hard and the CVT has to bring the revs up, at which point the lack of torque becomes much more obvious. At a steady cruise, it is quiet, comfortable and relaxed. When you need a sudden burst of acceleration, you start wishing for the turbo again.

CVTs are not usually something enthusiasts get excited about, and this one does not transform the S70 into anything sporty. But it suits the character of the NA car reasonably well. Driven normally, it keeps things smooth and unobtrusive, and most of the time the transmission simply gets on with keeping the engine in a sensible rev range.

Push harder and you get the familiar CVT behaviour of the engine revving up while road speed catches up. Again, there is no hiding the performance deficit. But if you spend most of your time in traffic, on urban roads or cruising steadily on highways, the transmission actually fits the car quite well.

And that brings us to the most important part of the S70 Prime: its price. At its normal list price, the Prime sits at RM62,800, and with the current RM3,000 introductory rebate, it drops to RM59,800 for eligible buyers. Once you get down to around RM60,000, the conversation changes.

You stop asking whether it is as good as the turbo S70 in outright performance, because clearly it is not. Instead, you start asking how much car you are getting for the money, and the answer is quite a lot.

You are still getting the S70’s space, comfort, ride quality and general refinement. You are still getting a fairly substantial sedan rather than something that feels stripped to the bone. The Prime also adds enough equipment to make it feel like the more sensible choice over the Lite if your budget allows.

Should you just stretch to the S70 1.5TD Premium?

For buyers looking at the S70 Prime, the obvious next question is whether it is worth spending more for the 1.5TD Premium, which is the entry point into the turbocharged S70 range.

At normal list prices, the Prime costs RM62,800 while the 1.5TD Premium is RM79,800, so you are looking at a RM17,000 jump. If you factor in the current RM3,000 launch rebate on the Prime, bringing it down to RM59,800, that gap effectively becomes RM20,000.

Most of that extra money is going towards the powertrain. The Premium gets the 1.5-litre turbocharged four-cylinder with 181 PS and 290 Nm paired with a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission, compared with the Prime’s 120 PS and 150 Nm naturally aspirated engine and CVT.

That is a huge difference in torque, and you feel it every time you accelerate hard or need to overtake. Where the Prime needs some planning, the turbo Premium simply has much more performance in reserve.

Equipment-wise, though, the difference is not as dramatic as the performance gap might suggest. The Prime already gives you much of the everyday S70 experience, including the space, ride comfort, leatherette upholstery, automatic air-conditioning, front parking sensors, reverse camera, 17-inch wheels and wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Infact, the Premium has smaller wheels, being equipped with 16" wheels compared to the Prime's 17".

Neither of these variants gives you Proton’s full ADAS package however, so moving from the Prime to the turbo Premium is not really about unlocking every piece of technology Proton offers.

Interestingly, spending more on the turbo Premium does not necessarily mean getting a better infotainment setup. Both the Prime NA and 1.5TD Premium use an 8-inch touchscreen, but the cheaper Prime gets wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, while the Premium sticks with the older screen-mirroring system. You have to move further up to the Flagship before you get the larger 12.3-inch screen together with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.

That makes the decision quite interesting. Spend another RM17,000 at list price and what you are primarily buying is substantially more performance. If you regularly overtake on trunk roads, carry a full load, drive in hilly areas or simply like having plenty of power in reserve, that extra 61 PS and 140 Nm will be easy to appreciate.

But if most of your driving consists of commuting, sitting in traffic and cruising at highway speeds, the Prime makes a stronger case for itself. RM17,000 is a significant amount of money when many of the S70 qualities you actually experience every day are already present in the cheaper car.

The Proton S70 Prime 1.5 NA is not secretly quick. There is no hidden surprise here where 120 PS suddenly feels like 180 PS. It does not. The lack of grunt is obvious, particularly when overtaking, accelerating hard or flooring it from a standstill.

But the drive also highlighted something more important. A lot of what makes the S70 pleasant to live with has nothing to do with the turbocharger if you rarely drive fast. The ride is still excellent, the cabin is still spacious, the comfort is still there, and it is quiet and refined at highway speeds. Thanks to the torque-converter CVT, it also pulls away more smoothly and predictably than the turbo car.

So Proton has taken away one of the S70’s biggest strengths, but it has also removed one of its niggles. If performance matters to you, the turbo remains the one to look at. But if your priorities are comfort, space, refinement and value, and you can live without the extra shove, there is still a lot to like here.

Perhaps the biggest question is no longer whether the S70 Prime is fast enough to impress. It is whether it is fast enough for the way you actually drive.

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