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Found this website...nicely done. Those who are old enough would remember this website...didn't realised that they are back !! Looks great...some of the picture found inside...

Singaporeans are a pretty practical bunch. It is hardly a surprise that certain car marques associated with reliability, fuel economy and resale value dominate our best seller list. We go for the safe bet; the choice that makes sense to us numerically. And so, I am often met with a puzzled look when I explain that the most important attribute for me when car shopping is power (both bhp and torque) or when I tell people that my hobby is modifying my ride to go that little bit faster. Inevitably, the following refrain will be heard. "Fast car in Singapore? For what? Our roads are so congested and traffic lights are everywhere. You won't be able to travel much faster than my [insert choice of unclemobile]." To them and those of you practical minded folk reading this (yes, even in a car enthusiast's forum, they exist), my answer is a firm Yes. I personally find it strange that society can look upon practicality with such deference and respect. To me, being conventional and practical reeks of one thing - being a boring person. But I don't expect that practical folk can ever understand this and I just want them to stop being so judgmental and so insistent that their way is the only way. So here goes. This is my tongue-in-cheek list of "practical" reasons why sports cars or fast cars have a point in Singapore. 1) Some sports cars can become future classic cars. Just like art pieces, there is a chance that some day down the road, that sports car may actually appreciate in value or at the very least, retain value much better than the typical bread and butter car would. Well, I will admit that it is a bit of a gamble and not all sports cars will reach cult classic status but there is the possibility right? And isn't this just like investing in art or fine wines? 2) Powerful cars are safer. Yes, you heard me right. Powerful cars allow you to overtake more easily and more safely. Fast cars usually also come with better and grippier tyres, better safety features and better brakes. If driven sedately, I would say that such cars would probably be a lot safer than the typical bread and butter car. Now, isn't being safe a very important consideration, even for you practical folk? 3) Sports cars incentivize you to keep you healthy. You never thought this is possible but your car can have an effect on your health. Driving a sports car with a rock hard suspension is painful for those who do not keep themselves limber and fit. The hugging bucket seats mean that you must keep your weight and girth in check. And if you do not stretch regularly, I doubt you will be able to climb in and out of a low slung sports coupe. Now we are often lazy when it comes to keeping fit, so what better incentive can there be than the fact your ridiculously expensive sports car will go to waste if you didn't? With all these practical benefits, be sure to make your next car a fast or sporty one! Note: this is meant to be a light-hearted and humorous article, not genuine advice/opinion!

Now if you're an avid motorist and love different sorts of motoring experiences then taking your car on a ferry ride is something you should do. On a recent trip to Penang I did just that. This is a motoring experience that allows you to drive on a large boat, step out of the car, take in that salty sea breeze with a slight tinge of diesel from the ferry's engine. You can do this as soon as the ferry is on the move and you get to admire the scenery around you from a slightly different perspective and then you drive off when you reach the other side. The Penang Ferry Service is the oldest operating ferry service in Malaysia. The ferry services first began operation in 1920, under the management of a Chinese company. The chap who owned the company must have been one of those who could afford those beautifully designed bungalows on Gurney Drive. But today it is jointly operated by the Penang Port Commission (PPC) and Penang Port Sdn Bhd. The ferry service connects Sultan Abdul Halim ferry terminal in Butterworth to Raja Tun Uda ferry terminal at Weld Quay in George Town on Penang Island. Now taking the also scenic Penang Bridge would actually save you 0.70sen as the toll charges for the bridge comes up to RM7.00 only. You pay the toll on the mainland side of Seberang Prai and you do not have to pay if you leave the island. This is the same with ferry service. It is only when you head towards Georgetown when you have to fork out RM7.70. Or course, what is 0.70sen when you get to experience something slightly different? On the ferry you get to take a short breather and just observe the people who took the ferry with you as well as exploring the ferry itself, looking at the structure of the ferry with its steel framework, bolts and bars that make up its construction. You get to look closely at another type of engineering other than looking at cars and other forms of motoring. You also get to see the waves breaking as the ferry travels on the water and admiring the surrounding. Taking the Penang bridge would be like taking the second link between Malaysia and Singapore, albeit slightly longer and with a suspension bridge elevated section in the middle of the Penang bridge. To say that it is faster than the ferry is subjective as it depends on the time of day and where you wish to go. The bridge enters the island at Gelugor whereas the ferry takes you right into Georgetown and the ferry services are pretty efficient as it takes on average slightly less than half an hour between the two points per trip during peak traffic times. The ferries at those times just embark and disembark passengers and cars doing many round trips per day with clockwork precision. At peak hours where the bridge is pretty choked with traffic it may take a good half an hour to reach Georgetown proper. The experience was good one as it has been years since I took the ferry in Penang and it only took slightly more than thirty minutes of waiting, driving on the ferry, the ferry trip itself and then driving off at Butterworth. This, on a lazy Sunday afternoon. It is of my opinion that the ferry ride in Penang is one motoring experience that any motoring enthusiast living in this region should experience for themselves. If you intend on driving to Penang and if you have not taken the ferry before you should do so. A Ferry ride is a motoring experience that a motorhead should experience.

I made a short trip with the family up north to Penang quite recently as we had a wedding to attend in Butterworth. The fun thing about Penang is that it is a nice mix of old and new. There are old buildings located almost everywhere in the island city of Georgetown and it has that slightly colonial feeling if you spend some time driving through its streets. The hotel where we stayed was a typical highrise building but right in front it was a Kentucky Fried Chicken fast food restaurant that was housed in a colonial style mansion that had been well preserved. I presumed that the mansion would have been built sometime in the 1930s or the 1940s and it still looks majestic, if you ignored that large Colonel Sanders KFC logo upfront. Even the buildings from the 1950s to the 1960s have a certain flair to it. Being another island city, there could be some similarities between Georgetown and Singapore city, but with less modern development like highways and wider roads of course. Everything is narrower and there are many small streets for an out of towner to explore, with a car, bike or by.... walking (the horror!). -Gurney Drive - a mansion on Gurney Drive For another example of old meets new one should go over the Gurney Drive or the roads around the area. We have bungalows, built by the Towkays of days gone by, situated right beside a highrise condominium or two. Somehow development has slowly transformed a quiet residential road into a bustling F&B outlet, hotel and condominium filled street. But I somehow have great respect to those individuals or families who are still holding out their family homes around this area instead of succumbing to the obscene amount of money that the sale of the land would bring them. -the night market at Batu Feringgi Of course, I was there on a weekend and the traffic on a Sunday morning was free from any sort of jams . This meant that I had time to soak in the overall experience even more. Oh yeah, the food was good and there are other things to do like frequent the night market located at Batu Feringgi. This is where you find all those tee-shirts, bags, shoes, DVDs and watches like in most large night markets in the region. Of course if you want original branded stuff, this isn't the place to go. This place is for everything else. Another good thing about Penang is the food. I don't have to tell you readers out there about Penang food as you can see, read or hear about Penang Nasi Kandar, Penang Char Koay Teow, Pasembor and a few other specific food. You could try the stalls at Gurney Drive from the evenings or the thousands of seafood restaurants that litter the island and those Nasi Kandar shops and stalls around the Chowrasta Bazaar market and Chulia Street. Amazing food, but it is still sold at a reasonable price. Unless you really pig out that is. Penang is a good seven to eight hours drive from the Causeway, or faster if you have the proper car and aren't bothered about those pesky speed traps. A trip from Johor right up to Penang is a fabulous experience. The North-South Highway is a little dull and tedious from Johor to Seremban, busy from Seremban to Kuala Lumpur. It gets better from Kuala Lumpur to Ipoh, where it passes the limestone hills which is nice to look at and when you pass Ipoh the highway becomes challenging. Uphill through the Menora Tunnel and down part of the Titiwangsa mountain range. This stretch is a fabulous drive with high speed sweeping corners coupled with a majestic view of the surrounding. Pass Taiping the highway gets bumpy due to the soft ground. This also makes a good test on your car's suspension and before you know it, you're in Penang. But good road trips are seldom short. Of course to some it may not be as long as a trip to Hatyai or Phuket in Thailand (especially to some bikers I happen to know). The thing is that while people say that it is the experience during the trip that is important in motoring, there is sometimes equal satisfaction if the destination you arrived at is all that it's worked up to be. And Penang is such a place.

Now Singapore drivers are a varied and diverse bunch but there is one thing that most of us unanimously hate - increasing motor vehicle insurance premiums! And (no surprises here ) I think I have the solution to put an end to unjustified insurance claims, or at the very least reduce the amount of complaints from drivers. Motor insurers, I sure hope you are reading this! The major problem, as I see it, with motor insurance, is a lack of transparency. We have no idea how our premiums are determined and how any increments are determined. With such lack of transparency, is it any wonder that most of us will react to any premium increase as an opportunistic attempt to earn more profits? Ever been to a restaurant and received one entire bill with no break-down telling you which dishes cost you how much money? Ever received a mobile phone bill that just stated the amount payable with no break down of how much was incurred on calls, sms-es etc? I really doubt it. Yet, when we receive our insurance renewal quotes, we essentially get one figure and our no claims discount (if any). Of course we would be pretty upset if the quote is much higher than the previous year's. Assuming that he/she had not been involved in any accidents, any rational driver would assume that their insurance premiums would get cheaper over the years because: 1) The value insured is less now that the vehicle's market value has depreciated over another year. 2) They have established one more year of safe driving records and hence proved less risky to insure. 3) And, not forgetting an increase in the NCD. To deal with this, I propose a premium system that breaks down the insurance premium into several components, each of which must be clearly detailed in any insurance quote. Let me illustrate how this system would work. 1) The insurers determine a basic rate that covers the average administration costs of a motor insurance policy for an accident-free driver. This rate should be largely the same for everyone, barring some differences based on vehicle categories such as bikes, cars and goods vehicles. 2) Add on a component to account for the value of the vehicle insured. I am no acturial scientist, so I will leave it to the experts that the insurers or GIA hire to determine the formula for calculating how to translate the value into a premium. 3) Add on or subtract a component based on the risk profile of the individual driver - here is where things like gender, age and any other individual attributes insurers deem important are factored into the premium. As a general rule, a driver profiled as safe should receive a deduction, while a driver profiled as unsafe would receive an addition to the premium. Accident track records should also be included here. 4) Finally, add on or subtract a component based on the individual vehicle. It is common knowledge that insurers do not look too kindly on sports cars or cars bearing certain brand badges. Here is where the insurer can factor in this component. Drive a 2 door, turbo-charged sports convertible? Pay $X more. Drive a slow, sedate uncle-mobile? Deduct $X from your premium. Through this entire process, the final figure will be arrived at. Of course, the insurers may not use the exact same components that I have used. After all, they do pay their risk analysts large salaries and they should arguably be able to come up with a better break down of the premium. What is more critical is that they OUGHT to adopt a roughly similar system and that they MUST include the break down in every quotation. This is a win-win system for both insurers and drivers. For the insurers, the benefit is clear. They reduce the amount of griping from drivers and the bad press they receive every time motor insurance premiums are discussed. More importantly, it becomes much easier to convince drivers of a need to increase the premium by pointing to the exact component that underwent an increase rather than pointing to the fact they lost money. With a clear break down, I am sure they will also be better able to target the errant drivers while not penalizing the safe ones. As for us drivers, we also receive benefits. For one, looking at the premium, we can best adjust our habits and lifestyles to reduce our premiums rather than simply passively accepting increments. If the component based on the vehicle is high, we may perhaps think of changing cars. If on the other hand, it is because of the value of the car, we may opt for a downgrade. With this system, we can take on an active role, where possible, to try and reduce our premiums. When purchasing cars and obtaining insurance quotes, we can now make better informed choices. Doesn't this seem much better than what we currently have in place? Once again, motor insurers, I hope you are reading this!

I received a mailer from the Security Department the other day. Basically, it reminded everyone to cross the roads properly and detailed an accident that took place several weeks ago. A pedestrian had gotten knocked down and suffered minor injuries. The clincher? He had been reading his emails on his phone while crossing the road! Now, I had heard rumours of the accident on the grapevine on the day of the accident and when I passed the rumoured accident scene, I saw collateral damage to bollards along the road side. The car must have been damaged pretty bad, trying to avoid the pedestrian. That really got me thinking. Assuming (and I am really assuming here) that my postulation about the accident is correct. The driver is more or less innocent of any wrong doing. Yet, in all likelihood, even if he is safe from the sanction of the law, he has probably incurred upon himself a hefty repair bill. What is probably going to happen is that he will submit an insurance claim and his premiums will rise significantly next year. All this because some pedestrian was reading his emails and stepped out onto the road in front of him! Talk about bad luck! In more extreme cases, reckless traffic crossing can actually result in deaths of motorists. Remember the case where a drunk tried to cross the PIE? The worst part is that the victims are unlikely to be able to obtain any compensation from the errant pedestrian. There is no mandatory third party insurance for pedestrians. Unless the pedestrian is a millionaire, most victims of poor pedestrian road safety will never receive their rightful compensation unless they are self insured. Road safety is the responsibility of all road users, pedestrians included. But from what I observe, many pedestrians are starting to take road safety for granted. Many cross at unauthorized road crossings; some even taking their own sweet time to do so and force drivers to apply a hefty amount of braking to avoid hitting them. Honks to warn them of their feckless behaviour may sometimes be greeted with rude stares or even the universal gesture. Most pedestrians are of course more of the complacent variety - they are just careless with road safety. Just like the pedestrian I described. Something must change. I suggest that heavy sanctions be adopted to combat such behaviour. To start with, we should enlarge the offense of jaywalking to include reckless road crossing, increase the fine to $100 and conduct highly publicised Traffic Police Ops to catch offenders. What say you?

It is widely acknowledged that our road tax system is heavily skewed in favor of the small engine capacity car. I will not bore you guys with the detailed mathematical formula of the road tax system here on our sunny island (you can read about it here). It will suffice to say that any car with an engine capacity larger than 1,600cc is likely to face a pretty hefty road tax bill. A 3,000cc car attracts an annual road tax of $2,386 compared to $744 for a 1,600cc one. The road tax on the 3,000cc car can pay for both my road tax and insurance with a couple of hundreds to spare! With such a policy in place, it doesn't take a genius to figure out which cars will sell best in Singapore. No wonder Kah Motors brought in the 1,600cc Civic specially for the Singapore market! The main justification why drivers should be taxed lies in the economics concept of negative externalities. Drivers create pollution which affects others; they also consume scarce fossil fuels. These are costs which society as a whole will bear rather than the individual driver. The tax aims to impose some of these costs back on the driver when they are deciding whether to drive or to use other forms of transport. However, by taxing based on displacement, the assumption seems to be that a larger displacement vehicle will consume more fuel and pollute more (and thus should pay more tax). However, this assumption no longer stands. With current advances in automotive technology, I am sure we all know that there can be larger but more frugal and less pollutive engines. Using displacement as a benchmark is a poor and blunt proxy for the true purpose of road tax. If I drive a larger displacement vehicle but it is actually greener because the engine technology is advanced, I still get penalised! That doesn't seem fair, does it? And I believe that I am not the only one who thinks this way. There is, in fact, some acknowledgment globally that vehicle owners should be taxed based on the pollution their vehicles generate rather than displacement. In the UK, for vehicles registered after 2001, road tax is imposed mainly based on the amount of CO2 emissions that the vehicle emits. Before 2001, UK had a road tax based on displacement as well. This is indeed a welcome trend and one I believe that the LTA should look into. But if I have my way, I would abolish road tax altogether and replace it with a higher fuel tax. Now, before you readers rush to flame me in the comments section, hear me out! While a pollution based tax is in the right direction, it is still too blunt an instrument. That is because the buying and ownership of a highly polluting or a big displacement car will not in itself create pollution. We pollute and consume scarce fuel only when we drive! Now, if you drive more, you create more pollution, you pay more! Isn't that even fairer than simply taxing based on pollution? After all, if I own a Range Rover Sport but only drive it 1km to the market on Sundays, surely I pollute less than the person who travels >100km in his Toyota Altis daily? So, shouldn't he be taxed more? Of course, I must admit that my system is not without its flaws. For one, it is possible that in some cases, an extremely polluting car, driven a short distance can still outweigh the pollution caused by a year's driving for an extremely green car. Well, I believe that these are the outliers and are likely to be very very rare and that my system will be fairer to the majority of Singapore drivers than what we currently have. What say you?

I was surfing the Internet recently and one of my friends shared this video link on his Facebook profile which made me rather confused. It was on the verge of being funny, yet I felt quite disgusted at what I saw. I'm sure some of you have seen this video before but here it is for those who haven't got the chance to see it. If you burst out laughing because the man is practically flailing his arms everywhere, I won't blame you because that part is genuinely funny.. The part that's not funny is how these fights even occur. I've realised that driving on the roads somehow increases tensions between motorists; people begin to judge others by the car they drive, and the way they drive. The car and driving style become the sole basis that people are judged on the road. The funny thing is, if the 'bad' driver was your friend, you wouldn't want to take out a baseball bat and hit him to that state as shown in the video, sometimes you'd just laugh off his mistake. But when it comes to other drivers, its a whole new world of hell. There is little humanity on the roads these days in Singapore and in Malaysia. However, I'm also quite certain that many of you readers have travelled overseas and experienced different roads, drivers, driving styles, from my personal experience, I think the UK is one of the best places to drive, and its something that we can all try to emulate. Its civilized and people are courteous on the road. Over here, you signal early to change lanes, 90% of the time, the car behind accelerates past you leaving you stranded on your unwanted lane while other cars blaze past, not giving you any room to move over. In contrast, while I was in the UK, this phenomenon hardly ever happened! Motorists slowed down and clearly gave way to the car I was in and everything went smoothly. Its the same for parking. People here tend to get impatient and start to have hands that are glued to the horn and repeatedly blast it while someone else is trying to park in a congested carpark. I was just one of the people waiting behind while the car in front of mine created a symphony of horn blasts in the multi-storey carpark. Where is the love? Waiting a few seconds longer or slowing down to give way wouldn't kill you would it. Trying to save those few seconds could. For that guy who got beaten up in the video, I'd say that was his unlucky day but I guess it still takes two hands to clap. We can all make driving a much more pleasant experience if we want to. So what do you think? Have your say here under the comments!

[extract] Whatever you do, do not bother about the rear seats. The rear seats are for your toddler or pet hobbit, not you I

[extract] All this talk about cyclists and their rights to use the road has got me feeling slightly worried. It was not so long ago that legislators and lawmakers managed to convince car manufacturers to rethink and redesign cars to include energy absorbing bumpers, bonnets, windshields and A-pillars. According to various sources, up to 1 million people pedestrians worldwide are killed every year due to collisions with vehicles and this very bit of information had made legislators rise up to protect the supposed victims of all running down cases. In 2006, Citroen and Jaguar launched cars with bonnets that pop up by 5cm in order to give

The fairer sex won't be too happy about this, but a German study has shown that men are better at parking than women. The results of this study may potentially cause some outrage, but its really not as bad as it seems for women. The results of the study show that female drivers take 20 seconds longer than their male counterparts to park a car, and even if they do get their cars parked, they are more likely to be crooked than a car parked by males, Telegraph reported. The experiment was conducted as such: 65 people were rounded up and asked to park an Audi A6, a fairly large but not exactly huge car, into a standard parking space. And it wasn't just conventional vertical-reverse parking that was tested. Head-on and parallel parking was timed and tested as well and each type of parking was rated for accuracy according to the distance kept away from the sides of the parking space. The initial hypothesis from the scientists who carried out the experiment was that women would be the poorer of the two genders, but what surprised them was that the "cautious approach" did not help them park any better according to the Telegraph. Dr Claudi Wolf from Ruhr University in Bochum, Germany was the leader of the study and she said that these results confirmed that males have better spatial awareness and coordination than females. Furthermore, the study also revealed that males take more risks while driving than females, which will explain why most reckless drivers are male. The age old 'woman driver la' scoff seems to bear some truth, but Dr Claudi is quick to defend the female species by saying that "It only proves what previous studies about the spatial differences between men and women have shown." "Besides, it is not as if there was a massive failing by women. It is just about parking - not the triumph of men over women." Relax girls, males are worse at lots more important stuff...

1) Akimoto racing label on drivers side door. 10 years ago, I remembered this sticker was commonly visible in many tiong chias. Just like any trend, it soon died off. Anyone knows where Akimoto comes from?? 2) Sharks gill vent. People actually cut the sides to have that shark's gill vent. Think it originates from BMW. 3) De-spoiler. I believe the trend of taking out the spoiler comes from an episode from initial D where the challenger drives a EVO without spoiler. Explaining the advantages of no spoiler in the race or something. 4) Chrome number plates. Dying breed. Less chrome plates on the road, used to be the norm for all "enthusiastic" cars. 5) Euro plates. Also becoming less after news report of TP/ROV catchings. 6) Wrong tuning brand on wrong car makes. (eg. TRD on Honda car) As people are more motoring-aware and with internet access, there are less mis-match on the roads unlike many years ago.

I've read the review by Christopher Tan in ST's Life Motoring on the Skoda Superb. Seems like a very good review and I loved it. I'm sure it would give HA the boost they needed and puts the pride into Skoda owners. Now it makes me wanna own a Superb. For those who haven't read it, try to get your hands on the article.

Dear folks, My company will be planning a motor event targeting year end. The consumer segmentation would be from mass mkt to mid market PMEBs with 10% dedicated to high brow markets. Would need some info and was wondering if any kind bros/sis could help 1) How many motor shows are there in SIN in a span of 1 year (eg Motorshow, Big boy's toys, etc...) 2) Any interesting activities I could include? eg (drift workshop, car maintenance workshop) or any activities you car lovers would be interested in. 3) Any kinda competition would you like to have (eg ICE competition, performance via a on spot Dyno test, etc??) Basically my event will be targeting sales of booth space and motoring sponsors partnership. We'll have a high floor space and would prolly not charge anything as entrance fee. Thus it would be good of you guys can iterate what you like to experience in a motorshow (in addition to what's already being offered) and we could cater to the needs of the majority in order to reach a win win situation. Would appreciate any suggestions!! thanks loads

Enjoy the vids Part 1 http://www.megavideo.com/?v=GE7HAZKI Part 2 http://www.megavideo.com/?v=ML50VL6N Part 3 http://www.megavideo.com/?v=J9HTP01W

For the benifit of those who is looking for a car : Honda City : Like : Spacious cabin, strong engine, smooth CVT. Don't like : Looks, most expansive car. Toyota Vios : Like : Lively performance, competent ride and handling. Don't like : Cheap feeling interior. Suzuki SX4 Sedan : Like : Nice interior, serene ride, huge boot, surefooted handling. Don't like : Buzzing engine at high revs. Honda City : 1497cc,110bhp at 5800rpm,143Nm at 4800rpm,0-100kmph : 10.6s, S$67000 Toyota vios : 1497cc,109bhp at 6000rpm,141Nm at 4200rpm,0-100kmph : 11.8s, S$61988 Suzuki SX4 : 1586cc,101bhp at 5600rpm, 140Nm at 4000rpm,0-100kmph : 11.5s, S$58500 Happy viewing...

Hi, Download the skyline clip first at jparts.info under the membership perks section. Thanks Coming soon..

Hi, was on ECP to Cantonment after picking up my sister from Japan when I encountered a motorist who think he's exhibiting cool aggressive driving(IMHO, he's actually driving recklessly). He entered the expressway, drive all the way from extreme left to right without signalling or checking his blind spot and was about to swerve into lane 1 (he tink maybe he machiam Initial D, drifting from lane to lane???) had I not horned him (which IMO, I think he nber noticed I was beside him). He had to jam his brake to avoid kissing a car on 2nd lane. My eldest sis from Japan said that she would like to take over the wheels & show the chap a thing or two about real aggressive driving just to teach him a lesson. Wah I cannot imagine what the outcome would be like if she's behind the wheels cos she's a really experienced long-haul driver plus with her fair share of aggressive driving experiences contributed by trailer drivers over there.

i'm sick of the short & low quality vids found on the web. where can i buy the dvds? thanks.

Saw this in delphi forum: Best Motoring Jap & English Version, Option, and other motoring VCDs on sale at Chinatown new year market. 1 for $10 and 3 for $20. It is at a small stall nearly infront of the roast duck eating house "Dian xiao Er"

Hi Guys more... Not bad for Skoda 2002 Motoring Survey - The rankings 1-40 1 - LEXUS IS200

Hi Guys, Below are the results, SKoda did well beating Toyota, Nissian and the rest of the VAG gruop... 2002 Motoring Survey - Results by manufacturer 1