Category: Small Family 
Price Range: £9,995 to £10,995
Cheap to run, decent looks, good kit levels.
Terrible driving position, noisy, sluggish engine.
Half-price fuel bills, but you have to put up with half the quality of competitors.
Half-price fuel is a very tempting proposition - and is now a real possibility if Proton's new gas-powered Gen-2 Ecologic lives up to its claims.
The Gen-2's latest incarnation can be run on Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), which means that when you make your trip to the garage to fill up you'll be pleasantly surprised - your £80 receipt will now read £40. You would also have been pleasantly surprised at the dealership, because Proton has absorbed the cost of the LPG conversion into the £10,995 list price.
All this should be music to the ears of those on a tight budget, but this is what you get with the Proton Gen-2: budget motoring... albeit in an unlovely family hatchback.
The question is: is it so unlovely that the financial benefits outweigh the Gen-2's frailties?
Well, it's a close-run thing. The introduction of the factory-fit LPG unit coincides with a few much-needed improvements. The changes in this, the Gen-2's third facelift, have made a difference but there are still some shortcomings that cannot be ignored.
On the face of it there's little to lose: it's cheap and cheap to run. That might be a deal-maker, but the fact that you are unlikely to get a discount or pick a Gen-2 up from a bargain-basement broker means the purchase price looks less attractive - particularly when it is possible to get sizeable discounts on a Ford Focus, Vauxhall Astra or even a Kia Cee'd.
So how practical and environmentally-friendly is LPG? Well, it's available in 1,400 garages throughout the UK and, if you consider that you emit 20% less carbon dioxide than with a petrol engine, it makes a lot of sense. Then again it's around 10-15% less fuel efficient.
The Gen-2 will give you cheap fuel bills, but there are plenty of other factors that will make you think twice before you shell out your hard-earned cash at the Proton dealership.
