Has Proton Shuttered Its Acclaimed R3 Division?

The Proton R3 division in full force during last year's Sepang 1,000KM (S1K) race with their then newly built S70 R3 racecars. We've now learnt that this is perhaps the division's last competitive outing.

Some sad news from the front today. Based on various social media postings by industry personnel, it appears national automaker Proton may have shuttered its acclaimed R3 (Race Rally Research) motorsports and racing arm.

Carz.com.my was first made aware of this via a Facebook post from a former R3 staff member shared to us – embedded below. Besides a bittersweet farewell, said posts also shed some light into why the division shuttered.

From which, it seems R3 first “lost its full momentum” when DRB-Hicom took over its management in 2012, side-lining the commercial team that developed the much-loved and sought-after R3 performance parts and aerokits.

Since then, the division operated purely as a stand-alone motorsports arm. Though it developed and built a string of race- and tittle-winning racecars, arguably very little of that magic trickled back into Proton’s production models.

We’ll refresh your memory by pointing out that the last R3-badged special model offered by the automaker was the X50 R3 20th Anniversary Edition. Said special debuted at the Malaysia Autoshow 2023 (MAS 2023) and saw just 200 units offered at RM125,300 each.

Prior to that, Proton did offer R3 special editions of both the Saga sedan and Iriz hatch back in 2021. Both were launched to celebrate R3’s successful multi-year title defence in the then Malaysia Championship Series (MCS) – now rebranded as MTCC.

Proton also made R3-branded special editions of both the Saga and Iriz back in 2021, limited to just 2,000 units and 500 units respectively.

Just 2,000 units of the Proton Saga R3 Limited Edition were built, each tagged at RM42,300 and brimmed with a slew of exclusive R3 goodies – aerokit, black-yellow livery and lightweight wheels included.

The Proton Iriz R3 Limited Edition launched alongside which, on the other hand, stands even rarer as just 500 units were built. Each commanded RM52,900, and it also boasted exclusive R3 goodies as the Saga did.

The storied R3 division’s closure is indeed a sad occasion for many fans and loyal followers. For the uninitiated, this motorsports arm of Proton very similar to Toyota’s Gazoo Racing arm – and we’ll argue they’ve been doing this for far longer too.

Sadly, we saw early signs of the division’s imminent closure prior. One recent hint came from former Proton Deputy CEO Roslan Abdullah when he appeared on the Tekan Habis podcast earlier this year hosted by this writer. You can watch a snippet of which in the video embedded above.

"The management is still discussing the future direction for R3: Should we continue, or sell? It’s still under discussion. No decision has been made yet,” said Roslan at the time. The exec has since left Proton to take up the mantle of COO at GWM Malaysia.

The Proton S70 R3 S1K racecar was the division's first build based on a Geely product that raced in last year's S1K event where it claimed a top-five finish.

In the same podcast, Roslan even acknowledged that there was commercial value in the R3 brand. To see it go dormant now is truly both shocking and sad, especially knowing what could have been.

Given what’ve just relayed, what do you folks reckon? Should Proton have kept its legendary motorsport division running? What do you think could’ve been done differently with the division? Share your take in the comments below…