Brief History About Proton
Proton was founded in 1983 in Malaysia and was government owned.
The company collaborated with Mitsubishi Motors to help build Proton cars and were therefore closely based on Mitsubishi cars, until 2000, when Proton started to build their own cars.
Quite early on Proton got involved in motorsport and in the late 80’s setup the Petronas EON Racing Team (PERT) and had some good results in rally racing. They have also been involved on and off in The British Touring Car Championship (BTCC). In 2003 they established the Proton Motorsports Division, (Race.Rally.Research) or just R3.
In 1996 Proton bought 80% of the shares in Lotus, followed by the rest of the shares in 2003. This move allowed Proton to improve the suspension and handling of its cars and the development of the Satria GTi.
In 2008 Proton once again returned to partner with Mitsubishi Motors.
In 2012 Proton was bought by the Malaysian conglomerate DRB-HICOM and also partnered with Honda to share resources.
