Story and pictures by Grace Chen, Car Bus Trucks, New Straits Time
FORTY years has passed but Datuk Davy Woo Nam Seng, the first man who influenced and initiated the export of Proton cars back in 1984, can still clearly recall the interview that placed him in the automobile industry.
“I was 19 when David Kong, the sales manager of Wearne Brothers Ltd in Jalan Pudu, Kuala Lumpur, fished out a Parker pen from his pocket and asked me to sell it to him," says Woo, who grew up in the squatter areas of Jalan Imbi (now Starhill).
"So, I gave him the pitch on lifestyle and value before highlighting the owners of Parker pens as holders of authority. He told me to report for work the next day.”
Securing a job in Wearnes, at that time a huge Australian owned automobile assembler, distributor and retailer, finally paved the way for Woo to become the first exporter of the Malaysian car.
Looking back, this father of three confesses that if he had not botched up in an earlier interview with a cigarette company, he would have ended up working in the tobacco industry instead.
“There were two persons in the interviewing panel at the cigarette manufacturing company where I was hoping to get a job and the first question they asked me was whether I smoked. My answer was a firm ‘no’.
Very quickly, they asked if I would consider taking up smoking and without hesitation, I told them ‘no’. Then they asked, ‘Why not?’ and being naïve, I said smoking is bad for health,” says Woo.
It was only after answering the third question did Woo realise that he had said the wrong things!
Looking at Woo’s career, one cannot help but notice that it is a path that has been largely influenced by circumstances. Woo’s pivotal role in marketing Proton to the international market which would take up 13 years of his life also had a touch of serendipity about it.
In late 1983, when the Malaysian government was concluding a joint venture agreement with Mitsubishi Motor Corporation of Japan to manufacture a Malaysian national car, Woo was in Singglesthorne, a small village about 10 miles from Hull in UK, with a good friend, Harry Knopp, the former general manager of Universal Motors.
“Knopp passed away a few days before the Christmas of 2006 and I was happy to have been with him for a week before then. Knopp was my close friend and mentor who always encouraged me to look into the future.
He had heard about the jointventure and his last words to me before I left for Malaysia to export the Malaysian national car,” says Woo.
It had been a tumultuous year for Woo and he was licking the wounds of a business disaster which left him close to broke. An indication of that financially challenging time was evident in the absence of wedding rings on his and his wife’s hands as the objects had to be sold off to tide the family during those lean years.
Sometime between 1980 and 1983, Woo had left the automobile industry to start his own video production. Going alone and without the backing of a large corporation for the first time, Woo’s venture was not successful and due to insufficient capital, the business went bust.
In the 16-hour flight from UK, Woo used this time to consider Knopp’s advice. Well aware of his own financial desperation (he only had about RM30 to his name at that time), Woo knew he had nothing to lose.
The automobile industry was one that he knew best after having held key positions in Wearnes Group, Cycle and Carriage Group and Alfa Romeo. So, on touching down in Subang airport, the first thing he did was to call up Datuk Adib Adam, then the Minister of Information, his former boss when he was working in United Cycle as the dealer development manager during the late 1970s.
On the same day, Woo arranged a meeting and then presented a verbal proposal to export the national car. Immediately, he was introduced to Tan Sri Ramli Kushairi, then the managing director of the FIMA group, and Tan Sri Abdullah Ahmad, then the chairman of Syarikat Permodalan Kebangsaan Berhad (SPK), Yusoff Daud, the current chairman of Sprint Highway and Rahim Aki, the former chairman of Malaysian Mining Corporation.
“Together, we set up a company called Export Cars Corporation and approached Tun Mahathir Mohamed, then the Prime Minister of Malaysia, to present the idea of exporting the national car. At that time, the brand and the design of Proton has not even been conceived yet!” says Woo.
The fact that Woo had initiated the first meeting with Adib despite an exhausting 16-hour flight was a testament to his steely determination.
“I didn’t want to wait because I was excited and raring to go. During the flight back, I knew that this was it and nothing could go wrong. That gave me the adrenalin to push on,” says Woo.
The rest, as they say, is history and today, Woo can rest on his laurels. But as they say, there is no putting a good man down and though Woo is now semi-retired, he is still actively involved as corporate advisor and business strategist in Eclimo Marketing, where his 32-year-old son, Kok Boon is CEO.
One of the star products of this company is the ecLiMo Penan, an electric two-wheeler which promises the performance of a 125cc bike for which Naza has already been appointed as the assembler.
Another new production will be a higher range electric bike which promises the equivalence of a 250cc bike is already under testing in Tokyo and is scheduled to be released by the middle of next year. He is also bringing in a cancer treatment facility by next year, as part of a personal social cause.
Meanwhile, Woo - who does not smoke, drink, gamble or go for massages and karaoke sessions - says he only has two weaknesses in his life. One is for good food, the other is for cars.
At the moment, Woo who runs around in a chauffeur driven Toyota Estima is also the proud owner of a Volkswagon Passat CC, a good deal as far as he is concerned because they have given him five years unlimited warranty. Another one of his crown jewels is a new Mini Cooper S, the very car that he once drooled over when he was just a teenager.
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