The past few weeks have brought us good news in the sense that petrol prices have gone down to RM1.90 per liter from an incredible and outrageous high of RM2.70 per liter. This has brought me some joy as I don't have to drive like a 'good muslim' all the time. I recently drove down to Singapore to spend a weekend of shopping and my pocket was only slightly dented to the tune of RM160.00 for a round trip. Kuala Lumpur - Singapore - Kuala Lumpur at speeds higher than recommended by most people. This was with 4 of us in the car and travelling to and fro places in Singapore for shopping and dining. I'd be spending close to RM260.00 to be doing the same trip at the earlier prices. Of course this is temporary, once the speculators start their nonsense again, and if indeed the oil companies find it harder to get oil from the ground, it is bound to rise again. This time I hope that everyone will be prepared for it by remembering what I am stating below:
THE PETROL PRICE DROP IS ONLY TEMPORARY....ONE DAY PRICES WILL MOVE UPWARDS AGAIN OKAY?
One of the reasons a trip to Singapore takes only so little petrol is that the car I am driving. The Subaru Impreza 1.6TS is a wonderful highway/city/b-road car. It has ample poke and great handling coupled with great fuel economy from its 1.6litre engine. The only drawback in owning this car is an air-conditioning system that's insufficient to handle long journeys during mid-day. You feel the heat. After 125,000km of driving it, I'd have to say that I would not swap it for any other brand new car in Malaysia for the price I bought it for. With some tinkering by yours truly, the 0-60km/h time has been brought down from about 12.5secs to around 10secs and the top speed has risen from 180km/h to around 210km/h (unassisted by slopes or wind). I'd say that I've hit my initial target when I bought the car; which was to make it go as fast as a BMW Mini Cooper (Not Cooper S).
Now the point of this article is for me to tell you people out there that if you are a motorhead, you should at least once a year make a short trip to that island down south, Singapore. The reason is that on that small island nation you can get to see the latest in automotive hardware. Yes, occasionally you get to see Singapore plate Ferraris, Lambos and so forth driving to Genting for a bout of gambling but it is nothing compared to what you get to picture there. Yes, you might curse and swear at some of them when they drive up and down the North-South highway but if you haven't been there recently it's a bloody waste.
I mean, where can you get to see the latest Audis, BMWs, Mercedes', Hondas, Mazdas or even Alfas? Especially Alfas since Sime Darby seems to have given up on their quest to best Ron Lim in selling Alfas. I believe he's outselling them selling used Alfas to people compared to them. On my recent trip there I got to check out the latest Mazda 2. It's such a fabulous small car. It looks cool to drive one and it's styled uniquely enough that it won't be mistaken for any other small hatch. I even managed to park right beside a Maserati Gran Turismo (don't know whether it was the latest 'S' version or not) which looked smashing. No other car this side of an Aston Martin DB9 would have presence like the Maserati.
I managed to catch a Murcielago in white, 2 Lancer Evo Xs, a few Impreza 1.5s and S-GTs (but no STI), an Audi TT Cabrio with 19in S-line wheels in white (could have been a TTS Cabrio), some Chrysler 300s, the latest A4 Avant, the new R35 GTR in that dirty VSPEC Nur Green (it looked sublime in that colour), the new Porsche Cayenne GTS and some other cars that you don't see everyday here in Kuala Lumpur. At Second Link, you also may bump into fancy Malaysian and Singapore cars like a CLK350 (not as common like the CLK240), a brand new Saab Convertible, a few CLS's and Porsches.
The thing I'm trying to say is that while Kuala Lumpur has some fabulous cars to view, like the recent white Mansory GT650 Bentley Continental GT (Imagine someone ridiculously rich enough to body-kit a Bentley and let it ride on 20inch wheels), there is nothing like taking that short 3-4hour drive south and visit our neighbours. Aside from getting out of Kuala Lumpur and enjoying the interaction between your car and you (albeit on a straight highway and not on some fab B-road), you'd be amazed by the cars, the fabulous traffic system and also the shopping. On the shopping, you get to also see rich Indonesians, Singaporeans, Caucasians, Filipinos, Bruneians Malaysians but not as many rich Arabs who think money can buy anything like here in Kuala Lumpur. What more could you ask for?
No comments:
Post a Comment