Proton Saga and Proton Iswara

The Proton Saga was launched in September 1985 by Malaysia's Prime Ministerat that time, Tun Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad. Before the production of Proton Saga, a contest was held to choose the name of the first national model, and the name Saga was chosen from the winner of the contest. It apparently seems that the winner of the contestant was a retired military soldier. When asked why he chose this particular name, he replied as "saga" is a type of seed commonly found in Malaysia.
To mark Malaysia's continuous success, Tun Dr. Mahathir used a Proton Saga to cross Penang Bridge during the opening ceremony of the bridge. Early Proton Saga models were powered by SOHC 8-valve 4-cylinder engines sourced from Mitsubishi. Two displacement options available were 1.3 L and 1.5 L. Both engines were available with a 5-speed manual transmission, but a 3-speed automatic was only available with the 1.5 L engine. At first, the Saga was a 4-door sedan, but in 1987 a hatchback variant was introduced known as the Saga Aeroback.
In 1989, Proton started to export the Saga to the United Kingdom with the slogan Japanese Technology, Malaysian Style. Since then, United Kingdom contributes most of Proton's export production. The Saga name was not used and it was simply known as the Proton 1.3 or 1.5. The UK models reverted to the dashboard used in the Mitsubishi Lancer.
In 1990, the existing engines were revised with 12-valves, which increased power ratings to 75 bhp for the 1.3 L engine, and 90 bhp for the 1.5 L engine. On domestic models, the 'Megavalve' name was also used. Minor exterior modifications were made including flush headlights, more aggressive grill, additional side mirror on the passenger side(previous model only comes with one side mirror on the driver's side), and wraparound bumper knock strips.

Proton Iswara

In 1992, the Saga was facelifted and renamed the Proton Saga Iswara, or Proton Iswara, after a species of butterfly in Sarawak. Modifications included slimmer headlights, plastic bumpers, side mouldings, coloured door handles, grooved taillight clusters and rear number plate repositioned to the bumper. This particular model is used as taxis in Malaysia and some are modified to run on NGV. Due to the modification, boot space has to be sacrificed by almost half to accommodate the NGV tank and only a few petrol stations by Malaysian oil-giant Petronas in the Klang Valley that sells NGV, although there are plans underway to increase the number of stations selling it at various locations around Kuala Lumpur.
Models exported to Singapore and the United Kingdom were available with multi-point fuel injection and catalytic converters to meet Euro I emissions standards. This model was known as the Proton MPi in the UK.
In the United Kingdom, the introduction of the Proton Persona in 1993 replaced the corresponding models in the Saga range and this continued until the entire range was replaced in 1996.