Campro engines to remain relevant, says Proton engineer

Recent news on Proton may have been largely dominated by talk of its new family of engines, but any obituaries written for the venerable Campro family is perhaps premature.

We caught up with Proton’s Chief Technical Officer Abdul Rashid Musa at the recent Proton “It’s in the Drive” event, and he confirmed to us that interim development plans are in place to ensure that the Campro family remain relevant in Proton’s near to mid-term plans.

Currently, the Campro engine family spans almost the entirety of Proton’s line-up.

• 1.3-litre Campro IAFM: Saga
• 1.6-litre Campro IAFM: Persona, Preve Executive
• 1.6-litre Campro CFE Turbo: Preve Premium, Suprima S, Exora
• 1.3-litre Campro VVT: Iriz 1.3
• 1.6-litre Campro VVT: Iriz 1.6
• 1.6-litre Campro CPS: Not in current use.

Rashid emphasized that the new Campro VVT engines in particular, were meant to give the aging engine family more competitive emission levels and will continued to be used in cost-conscious markets.

As announced previously, Proton’s new modular engine family, developed in collaboration with Ricardo using technology trickled down from the Petronas E01 engine which Proton acquired in 2012, will offer a staggering six variations displacing 1.0 to 1.5 litres in three- and four-cylinder configurations.

Rashid elaborated that the engine’s modular architecture and inheritance of technology from the E01 engine enabled Proton to produce this many variations of the engine whilst capping the overall development cost at a targeted RM600 million, which admittedly does not include the RM63 million expended to purchase the E01’s design in the first place. In comparison, the Campro engine family was developed at a cost of RM450 million.

References: Information from Motor Trader Malaysia was used in publishing this article.