New Alza, or fairly new Exora, which MPV to buy, which will dominate?

Datuk Syed Zainal Abidin Syed Mohamed Tahir announcing the group’s second quarter results on Monday. Beside him is CFO Azhar Othman and behind them the Proton logo.

KUALA LUMPUR: Perodua launched its multi-purpose vehicle, ALZA, Monday, exactly seven months after Proton launched its MPV, EXORA.

For the two local car manufacturers' managing directors, Syed Zainal Abidin Syed Mohamed Tahir who heads Proton and Syed Abdull Hafiz Syed Abu Bakar who heads Perodua, the race line has been made "even" as far as the multi-purpose vehicle (MPV) market goes.

Proton says 30 per cent of its total estimated sales of 155,000 for the financial year ending March 31, 2010 will be accounted for by the EXORA.

Perodua is not any less confident.

The seven-seater ALZA, for which booking was opened 10 days ago, has already received 3,500 bookings up to 2pm today.

Syed Abdull Hafiz says production of the MPV is slated at 4,100 units a month, a number which he also hopes would be the monthly sales figure.

For the first 10 months of this year, Perodua had already sold 138,000 units of cars and expects to hit sales of 164,000 units compared with 167,000 units last year.

The ALZA meawhile which comes in six colours, offers two standard variants, automatic and manual transmission.

In this April 15, 2009 file photo, Malaysian national automaker Proton Chairman Mohd Nadzmi, left, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, second from left, former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, second from right, and Proton Managing Director Syed Zainal Abidi pose beside Proton's new model "Exora" during its unveiling in Kuala Lumpur.

The new variant seven-seater will be available at all Proton Edar and EON branches nationwide on Nov 21.

Available only with manual transmission, the EXORA Basic comes in three colours namely, genetic silver, tranquilty black and solid white.

The solid white colour model will be sold at an on-the-road price of RM57,548 in Peninsular Malaysia and RM60,148 in East Malaysia.

For the genetic silver and tranquility black metallic models, both are priced at RM57,998 in the Peninsula and RM60,598 in East Malaysia.

The EXORA, first launched on April 15, has made its debut in Indonesia and Singapore.

Proton reportedly plans to launch the MPV in Thailand by December.

Perodua so far has no export plans yet for the ALZA. - Bernama