The Proton PERT is a Mitsubishi Evo VI clone that won the Production World Rally Championship

Proton has a history of buying the tooling and rights to Mitsubishi models and keeping them in production, but in the case of the PERT there was no road-going equivalent of the Evo VI – this was purely an assault on the Production Car World Rally Championship. Proton licenced the car from Mitsubishi to run it under its Petronas Eon Racing Team (or PERT) umbrella.

And a successful one at that, given that driver Karamjit Singh and co-driver Allen Oh took FIA Production Car World Rally Championship honours. On occasion, they were even able to trouble competitors in higher classes with a top ten finish in Rally Safari and top twenty places in both the 1000 Lakes and Cypress rallies.

When father and son John and Gareth Lay bought the Proton, they were just looking for a car to rally with. “We didn’t appreciate how much history it had because when we bought it, we just wanted to go rallying,” says Gareth. Its history as a WRC car wasn’t declared in the advert and, indeed, it was advertised as an ordinary Group N Evo VI.

The new owners didn’t have to do too much digging to reveal the car’s true significance. There were still WRC scrutineering tickets inside the car, and some of its specification was a give-away. “The fuel tank has twin pumps and a super large fuel tank and nobody in their right mind would put that level of effort into a regular rally car to do one rally. It was built to do a whole championship – and to finish.”

The car was originally prepared by Derbyshire based Mellors Elliott Motorsport, and the car was returned there to be put back to its 2002 livery. It was the finishing detail that brought the car fully back to its 2002 WRC specification.

Prior to the colour scheme being returned to original, John had one competitive outing in the car, but these days both he and Gareth prefer to use it for demonstrations. “We want to look after the car, and in all reality it’s not that competitive. It might have won lots of rallies in its time but in British rallying today you wouldn’t get a top ten. When it was winning in 2002, it was already effectively a five-year-old design. That said I think we were sixth fastest [at Goodwood] yesterday so we’ve been pleasantly surprised at how competitive it is.”

Rally demonstrations typically occur on flat tarmac, so the Goodwood forest provides more of a challenge. “It’s a little bit rough at the end, but it’s brilliant,” says Gareth. “It’s back to the good old days of rallying.”

Photography by James Lynch and Motorsport Images.