Proton Putra WRC – the Prodrive-built racer, up close

We’ve previously seen images of Proton’s World Rally Championship contender, the Putra WRC that never made to the competition stages, though now we can see the rally car up close and in detail.

A brief recap – rumour was that British racing outfit Prodrive was commissioned by Proton to build the Putra WRC to contest the 1998 season of the World Rally Championship, and though the national automaker had competition experience and success in the national championship with the Petronas EON Rally Team (PERT), top-flight rallying was another game, and thus Prodrive entered the picture.

Given the Putra’s Mitsubishi bones, the Prodrive-built 4G93T would be a natural fit, and to that a six-speed sequential gearbox and four-wheel driveline was mated. Perhaps it was no surprise that the Putra WRC would bear more than a passing resemblance to the Subaru Impreza WRC98 racer, as both were Prodrive builds from a coupe base.

Reasons for the Putra WRC project’s untimely demise remains conjecture, though now we have images of the car up close, and it appears to be receiving restorative attention. Check out the images here courtesy of Jay’s Speed-graphy.

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