Singapore Steve

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, welcome to the AllTalk podcast. Al, how you going? Fantastic. Everything good.

This is our Christmas special. Christmas is coming up this week, so everyone's in holiday mode, my brain's not working. Your what? My brain is not working.

No, my brain's not working at the beginning of December. I switched off and we're just chilling out, getting ready to eat a feast this week. We've got a special guest, Australian from Asia, Steven Tapsellis, welcome. Hello.

Hello. I'm not talking with the next guest, I'm from Australia. Hello, I'm a living major. I don't know what you were expecting.

So all that listeners, every now and then, you might be able to distinguish. Welcome to our country, Steven. Thank you, thank you. Is it only for a couple days over Christmas?

Yeah, it just flew down to feast. The feast, then go back. Yeah, then go back. So what have you been overseas for a couple of years in Asia?

Where are you based now? Yeah, two years in Singapore and it's been five months in Hong Kong. I mean, this is a car podcast. What's the car culture like there?

I mean, is there a lot of cars in the world? Well, firstly, in Singapore, not many people own cars. Purely because you have to buy a certificate to put a car on the road for 10 years, and that costs just as much as the car. Is it like a rego?

It is. It is. It's the way they manage traffic or cars on the road. Instead of adding a luxury car tax, they put a certificate on the car to get on the road.

And that depends on the CC or the engine capacity. So you have a lot of people buying hybrids or small engine capacity cars, but then the really rich people buy whatever they want. So you have a lot of hybrids, a lot of those Honda HRVs, but then occasionally you do get the Lamborghinis. You still see them coming up at the hotels.

There's a few rollers, there's a few lambos. Exactly. I've also seen them, I've been in Singapore once before, and the car prices are not cheap. I've been saying a cheap Cherokee was $200,000, and the Singapore dollar and the Australian dollar is all going to say.

Harry. But that would have included that certificate. So what happens is the certificates are tapped to the car. So then if you hold the car for 10 years, you then have to renew the certificate and you can't.

Well, it makes more sense to buy a new car and get a new certificate rather than keep your old car and get a new certificate. That's the way to get rid of old cars as well. Correct. What about a carolocost?

80 grand, 120? Probably about 100 grand. Wow. Yeah.

So the interesting thing is when Uber set up in Singapore, they set up a model where they bought the cars. Isn't it so off? Yeah. Because it was so expensive and they wanted people to drive, they're not going to get young people to buy, spend all this money and buy cars.

So they bought all the cars in their fleet. But then what happened is you had all these young people who couldn't afford a car, otherwise all of a sudden became Uber drivers. They did not pick up a passenger. They didn't know where they were going.

So you'd watch the screen and the driver just going, right? So they're trying to find where to pick you up or take you? So it's a very interesting car culture. I mean, they love cars.

It's particularly the rich kids. They get, it's no different to anywhere else. They get a lot of. If you're a rich kid anyway, the light is going to be good.

How much is fuel in Singapore? I don't know. Are you not looking? Yeah.

So the taxis are really cheap. So compared to Australia, I always compare going to the airport in Sydney, cost you like 50 bucks in Singapore, it costs you like 15, 20 dollars. So you don't use the Mac as index, you use the airport taxi. Airport taxi.

Yeah. How are the cabbies cheap then? Have they got different model? I mean, they're cars, are they got different certificate?

I mean, they're called i40s over there. I don't know what they're called. Sonars. Yeah.

I think it's like. So they've got those cars as taxis. But the policy over there is taxi drivers are the pensioners. So you can't be a young taxi driver over there.

They're all older men or older women, more older men than women. It's enforced taxi usage. And they work for a corporation that don't buy the cab. They just turn it up.

Correct. Don't work. So the company over there, it's called Comfort Delgrove. No sponsorships.

No, no, no, no. Bugs you. They're in the buses, the taxis. And they also in a lot of things.

They're in cab charge in Australia. OK. So it's like a multinational company. Yeah, correct.

But then in Hong Kong, it's because I've never seen so many Teslas in my life. They're everywhere in Hong Kong. Probably because the distances are so short. Also, there's apparently a tax benefit for owning a Tesla car.

Is it? I mean, Hong Kong's all apartment living. Have the Hong Kong or the Chinese government gone all out to set up infrastructure? Was it all Tesla-based?

We were talking about this couple of weeks ago, where they put the Tesla at the goal base. They put the Tesla charge on the opposite side of where the actual plug goes in the car. Really? So they sort that out in Hong Kong?

Yeah, yeah. So from what I've seen, most apartment buildings have charging stations or the sort of referred ones. They start putting in charging stations in the car parks. But the car parks are not like the ones you see here in the Westfields, which go down four or five levels.

There's very limited space over there. So that's like Singapore's got the certificate. The Hong Kong premium is paying for a car space. Pay for a car space.

Pay for a car space. But there are a lot of cars on the road. Yeah. But with the new bridge and the tunnels that they're building, a lot of people coming from China.

So the cars that you see on the road, most of the time now have two number plates, one for a Hong Kong and one for Shenzhen, which is China or Kowloon or whatever. So you're starting to see a lot more cars coming in for the day from China. Okay. So they're making it, it's almost like a day trip, becoming the city, doing what you want to do and then leave.

A lot of people are starting to work in Hong Kong, but live in China, because it's cheaper to live in China and then come in for the day, then to buy apartment in Hong Kong. And they've got high speed rail. Yeah. So you can catch a train from Hong Kong to Beijing, which is on the other side of China in eight hours.

Okay. They've got proper high speed rail when it stays on the tracks. What about Singapore? You've been to the Grand Prix now at Singapore?

No. You've been. You've been. Yeah.

What's the line? The Grand Prix is amazing. Probably one of the more, I've been to the Melbourne line, I've been to the Monaco one. I'd probably say that the Singapore one is the better event, because it's all thought out.

You know, the racing's good in and amongst the streets, the buildings, the sound sort of bounces around, and then everything sort of close, like the music, the food and all that sort of stuff. So it's a really good event. Do they do not permanent stands? What's the opposite of permanent?

Temporary. Yeah. Yeah. So I've sat out there by brain side.

I've done you guys. I've got back to the morning starts, and my brain is on soft at the moment. Yeah. They start setting it up so that Windsor-Aced have timber.

It's a timber, yeah. So by about June, you start seeing all the barricades go up, all the temporary road things go up. So it's an exercise that they start months in advance, every year. I'm going to go this year, huh?

You're planning. I'm planning. It's all good deals around. I've looked for media passers for you.

Okay. We need to be established for three years, and leave, eat, and breathe. There's one about them every day. Yes, it's too high.

So I'm just talking about it now. Yeah. Yeah. So the mum's doing the same.

We're talking about it all the time. I'm suffering a lot from the one car up on it. Yeah. It's more patient every day.

The three years they might get a track pass or something. But I like the single-girl. I like the way they've got their light system set up. There's no.

The spotlights like one big like LED tube going around the track. Yeah. There's a spotlights every, I think every two meters on the track. So it looks, it does look like it's a daytime track in a nighttime.

And a lot of the drivers apparently, they sleep on Europe time when they come to Singapore. So it's a lot tight. Ah, yeah, because of nighttime races. It's a night race.

But the night, yeah, they get up and be after lunch and pretend it's like a European day. What band's played there? Have you been to the concert? Oh, yeah.

So he was the time that I went. We had Queen. Well, Freddie. Yeah.

Was Freddie. They brought the hologram. And they had Queen and he was at Adam Lambert. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. He was actually pretty good. Yeah.

Did he sell it for you? No. No. Did the band sell it for you?

They did. They brought it every now and again. They had the screen up. I did like it.

You were. Yeah, you did. Freddie. Freddie.

I was watching the Amazing Race the other night. They went to Freddie Mercury's house apparently. He grew up. He was born in Zanzibar in Tanzania.

Wow. So that was one of the pit stops in the Atlantic. And that's what a lot of people complained about it. If one of them went to the turbo era, they dropped the V10s.

It wasn't as loud. You don't need to wear earphones now. If you went to the E, you'd be looking for the track. Probably cross it.

Probably get a hit by one of the, is that? But then McCarray's. It wasn't that the female driver that went flying like a catapult. Yeah.

Saw Freddie do that a couple of weeks ago. That's just a hit. I didn't get it. I didn't get it.

She did it. No, I think she got clipped. Yeah. She hit something.

Another angle did come out said. It was showing a different story altogether. Basically, she's coming into Braig. But as soon as she got clipped, she couldn't break.

That's it. That's everyone. It was like a catapult. And she flew.

She's trying to get into Formula One. So it's a German, not a camera but a name. She's a German race driver. And I think that'll help.

Yeah, she's unbreakable. Yeah. But the car wasn't at the weight. Land like a pancake up against the wall.

Like a pig. He just sliding down. That was incredible. So that's the track.

Is that the locale track? Yeah. Yeah. I think it's around the casino area.

I haven't been to that race, obviously. But most of the things around the casinos. You didn't hear about it. No one hear it.

Well, we've got a one of our very first family friends overseas. The sun's contracted. Is sports drivers. OK.

Yeah. Was it? For both the savers. OK.

So basically they race online against other drivers. But it is a proper season. They do all the tracks. Yeah.

And they're very cool. Isn't it like the Missen Academy? Like with Gran Turismo? I'm not sure exactly how it is.

But it is like, you know, these kids are not kids anymore. They're early 20s. But they dominate. They were dominating online racing.

You know, they're very, very good. The times they do on esports are pretty much the same or faster. Then what an F1 driver will do on his simulator. And if they got contracted again, they've dangled the car.

I'm not sure what we're talking about. I'm now looking to it. And we're going to try and get them to have a chat to us. I'm talking to a guy to get on.

Yeah. They're out to get on back to me. But yeah, they've written article about how gamers with this Missen Academy with the Gran Turismo link. They found that obviously the physical nature of racing, they weren't sort of geared with the G-forces.

But everything else there, their ability to put the car on the track and take the corners was spot on. It's just had to get used to the G-forces. But the other thing is with the simulators, a lot of the time you use features as brake markers. Trees are not a very good one because sometimes they cut the trees down.

And where a tree used to be is a brake marker may not be. They found one year on the GP, the motorcycle, Grand Prix. I don't know which track it was in America, but a lot of the bikes were sliding off at this particular corner. Then they realised that they cut down some trees.

And where the riders used to use the previous year, there's a tree that's not there. They're breaking too late. They're losing the corner. Yeah, I guess with video games, you've got to make sure that they've put the right trees in the right spot or else you'll be sliding off all over the track.

What else, Alpena? I was just reading about these boards. OK. Yeah.

So they actually get drafted from the draft. Like you play certain competition. Yeah, the F1 teams, right? With the exception of Ferrari, that's a surprise.

OK. Basically drafted drivers from a pool of... A local talent or a pool. Yeah.

So you've got Williams, Hyper Energy, Volsindia, Hars, Mercedes-Aemj, Renault, Sauber, Toro, Rosso, McLaren and Red Bull Racing. Volsindia? Volsindia, yeah. Yeah.

They were, they were, they were, they were, they were, Volsindia. So they then they had their competition in October. October, they basically narrowed it down to pick their two drivers per team. So they got to get, so they got a lot, it says almost like Formula One, but on two drivers.

Two drivers, two drivers per team. You know, they sit there, they go there. E-buds in, they go do everything. You have technical issues with your cars.

Is that from the computer? I've got no idea. Oh, I've got to look into it. I've got to look into it.

But I reckon they should race them live against the real F1. And go... The real drivers are going to the... I've put the go-step one cars and make it...

Probably, yeah, F1 drivers are. Yeah. But the bugs kill me. Like, so your car can break down?

Yes. There's algorithm in the computer. So for all those betting agencies, they want to get involved. Yeah.

Get a Russian hacker. Yeah. You have flat tires. Yeah.

They throw the bananas like, what's that? Just Mario Kart. Mario, just Mario Kart. It's Mario Kart.

Yeah. They throw bananas and get boost and... No. And there's that shortcut.

Don't they have the shortcut? No, no shortcuts. You sure? Yeah.

100%. Okay. So E-sports is trying to make it legit. Yeah.

You can't run any mates off the track. You can't run your mates off the track. Yeah. It'll go backwards.

Yeah. And if the timer runs out, then I get the extra lap. No. Okay.

They put extra $2 in. No. A couple of $2 in. No.

No. Okay. No. My brain is slashed.

So we had some pay all this week. We had a busy... Sydney's going crazy with... We're meant to have some up at the end of every day.

We get a house store more too merging into one. All the thunderstorms of lightning and flatting. Flash flooding. And what happened to the Audi?

How? Well, I was... I tried to get back to the office because I had an underground parking. It was just chaos.

Could've made it up. It's like as soon as a drop of rain comes from the sky, everyone forgets out of drive. Everyone was either stopped. Okay?

No, no, I'm just going to stop. Made it. They were stopped. There were people trying to drive on the footpath because I want to get under an order.

They're a pedestrian seeking shelter. You can't drive your rain drive on the footpath. You know? It was...

I just couldn't get back in. And I was sitting in my car. Actually, I'm going to play the audio because I had the camera going in the car. Yeah.

I got to play the audio, which everyone will be able to hear. It's pretty much me sitting in my car. Helpless because I can't go anywhere. Here it is.

That's what you're dutch. That's on here. That's here. Carp, basically.

That's the inside of my car. That's what I'm doing. It's like my car. Yeah.

That was like a doney job. So I got out of the car. I heard a couple of big welts in the roof. A couple of big welts in the corner.

Lots of little ones here and there. What do you do? There was people that were driving along the motorway that had house items come through their windscreen. Because they're doing 80, 90, 100.

And you get those narrow corridors where the hail is at its worst. And they basically had tennis balls coming through there. Windscreen. I mean, there's a friend of ours that we're trying to get on.

It was always a wrecker. And he told me a story with a big storm hit, these and suburbs. BMW ran out of sun roofs. And he had a whole stack of them.

And he still talks about how much money he made that week. By upping the sun roof prices. Well, I got it as much. Well, God does know he threw the hail down.

So, Orangey Hong Kong, have you lived already? Yeah, yeah. So we had a typhoon, category 10 typhoon. Some of the soft ones with a bit of hail.

Yeah. So you had trees being uprooted, people being thrown around. Like a tree down street. So there's a video going around on YouTube of a little ice cream truck going along the highway.

And it literally gets thrown onto its side. Because the wind was, I think, up to 250 kilometers an hour. Lots of flooding. So you have people thinking that they're kind of super trucks.

But all of a sudden getting bogged into a pool of water. So there's no different terms of driving under the unexpitched truck. Yeah, pretty much. And like you said, Hal.

And once the rain starts, they don't know what they're doing. Everyone goes into panic and no one knows. Everyone just loses the road rules. That's what they're for.

And just keep driving. I met a couple of podcasts ago with David Stake and New reality for a Mustang in that BMW Mivertrault. He pulled me over last week. No surprise, Pete.

He's a poor kid. He's a great officer. He warned me that he was recording the conversation. Then I doubled there.

He even said, I warned you that I'm recording the conversation. And filming both ways and pointed to my dash cam. Sacking that a bit all proper on me. He thinks that one of my own plates is being reproduced and he's fake.

So I've got the, I think they call historical plates, then the numerical ones. Yeah, vintage. And they're bloody heavy. I remember when I had them on the mic, one time we went out for a coffee at Lyca, got home at about 1am.

It was good Friday too. It was not much traffic on the road. Got home and the plate was missing. And I thought it was some of a stall.

And I wasn't sure if you can get them reproduced. So we drove back and found the plates in flush at Lyca. It must have fallen off or I haven't had an hour plate before. But I remember that I was really heavy.

Like it's fairly old plates. And Casablop long pulled me over and basically said, I your front one's fine. Your rear one isn't because it's metal. It's got to be raised print.

Okay. Yeah. There's the print. You can see it.

It's a sticker. It's on. It's no, no, it's got to be raised. So I took it and he said the font's different.

So I took a photo of both. He asked me to send a letter to the RMS. He said he marked my car. So I thought great.

Double points. Hi, I'm going to drink a bit. I don't want to get all over. We sent the plates off the RMS.

The photos look identical. And RMS and that you'll find. So I printed off the letter, went to the police station. And she was a lovely officer behind the car.

And I hope he out. She went to the computer and came back and said, your car is not marked. So I don't know what he was saying to me. But I've got that letter in the glove box.

And this is the same officer. They couldn't tell the difference between an A7 and a Mustang. Oh, look. The police look good job.

No, no, no. But you get a few heroes. I'm sure there were better things to do. No, better things to do.

I was in a school over time. Where you can clearly read the number plates yourself and pull over to give them some sort of power trick talk and waste half a day this guy's life. You know. It was like 30 in the morning.

I was around the work. I was in a stop sign. This Christmas lights behind. I'm not the like, I'll lean through.

Because I wasn't doing one of 30 days. And he parked behind me. I'm like, what do you want? And don't let me tell me.

I thought you're kidding me. I am. And I can assure you that if he pulled over and sat in that spot, he could probably pull over at least 10 or 15 cars every hour, whose number plates actually don't comply. They've either faded.

They're damaged. And actually, by and all, if you've got damage or faded number plates that aren't legible, then you've got to hang them and get them replaced. Meanwhile, you've got number plates, which, well, they're not raised. But what are you talking about?

Right. They're historic plates. They're they were issued. So I find that when it comes to revenue, he probably thought I was trying to outsmart the cameras or have reflective whatever.

I mean, though, it usually probably they're right plates. I got pulled over two years ago. Then after that he didn't complain. He gave me a shit.

He might speak. That was pretty good. But he didn't complain about the planes. Anyway, what do you do?

So that was my little visit with the police last week. Christmas fellas. Christmas. Christmas.

Yep. Being ribbon on any new cars. No. But I drove a car with a power upgrade.

Ah. Those green monsters on the road. It was awesome. What's that?

What's that? I don't even know what's that. It was awesome. It was awesome.

It's an HSB Genius, sir. Oh, wow. Needs, um. It wasn't enough power for hell.

Yeah. So you want to go get a bit of ridgable, but I don't have a kilowatts. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah.

So 407 kilowatts at the wheels. Don't have a bad one, yeah? No. No.

No. Plug might hear it. No. No.

No. Yeah. There's a bit more to get out of it. Engine's still pretty fresh.

It's only done with the L.A. KZs car. So we'll get a bit more out of it later on. But yeah.

Truck and cheese. Compared to the Mustang. Well, yeah. No pedestrians were injured in this time.

Yeah. Basically, I picked up the car and I was in traffic. And I thought I'll give it a little stab just to change lanes, because there was a camera that was dawling along. It was like the rear end just lit up, stepped out.

There was my traction control. That was flashing. So it was like, wow. This is cool.

I've said before, those cars are all engine. And they need to change it. Keep track. It's all about traction.

I drive a W427 with a 7 liter Corvette engine in the Commodore and made the dashboard with slashing like Christmas Street. Keeping the theme. You just got to know how to keep that car straight with traction. There's enough power.

But how? I have to put an extra 100 kilowatts. Yeah. What's the next one now?

How big a tire? I did put them on the top. I think the mods that I did at L. We put with some Continental Conti Force contact tyres on it, which are a, they've got a tread wear rating of, I think, it's 80, which is very, very soft, 29530.

20s. And you have to warm them up. They do need a bit of heat to work at their best. That's two stabs at the pit.

Yeah, two stabs. But still it was, yeah. I think we'll have traction issues. And it wasn't raining.

And it wasn't raining. And it wasn't raining. I only were driving it while it was raining. We'll give that a shot.

My Mercedes is with our good friend, A-Man at leading edge. The... Oh, no, no, no. I was at...

I was at... I was at... I was at... I was at the A-Man.

You made it. All right. How's given that? The 73 Cooper name.

Oh. So it's called Mercedes. Yeah, we call it the book. Yeah, the...

Yeah, A-Man's giving it a detail. He's giving it a pack correction, giving it a detail. We've had some issues getting it started because the car fees are playing up. So we spent some time in his shop.

So I started out at A-Man's and I hope he's really better as well. Because he's sipped on some glass and he's hopping around. He's, he's worked on trying to keep all the customers cars. Which I was saying, but everyone still talks about that episode.

You don't have classic cars as well, Steve? Yeah, I've got a couple. Yeah. Well, you've got a 66 Mustang and a 67 US Falcon or US Import 2-Door Falcon Futura.

Wow, OK. So both left-hand drive, so it adds a little more complication. Don't I hear an Australian? Well, you've got to be in Hong Kong in Singapore.

No, they're here. Money needs certificates. Both in Australia. So that's what I'm looking forward to driving while I'm here.

That's why you came for four days as the driver. Just to keep the engine turning over. Well, they are. Classic cars, we've got a full episode on them.

But you've got to look after them. You've got to kick them away. You've got to start them going to move them. You can't just leave them as garage queens in the garage because the seals will rot.

They need to be driven. They need to be alive. And it's good to see you come out. So which one do you prefer?

The Falcon or the Mustang? So the Mustang is a 289, so the small V8. The Falcon has got an inline 6. The Falcon's got the three-speed order on the column shift.

OK. It's fun to drive. And people think that while you have such an old car with a six-cylinder engine in it, but it's actually fun to drive. So I think at this stage.

You've got to have these. The Falcons. And there's a Barra. A Barra.

Yeah. What's a Barra? The Falcon? The XR6-2-R-Mauge.

Not a Barra. No, no, no. They call it Barra. Yeah, the Barra-Mauge.

It'll drop straight. On the 6-cylinder. Yeah, the turbo. Yeah, the XR6-2-R-Mauge into that.

Mate, you've also seen you've been telling your wheels and everything that you've got. Just don't talk to us about anything about wheels and suspension. He'd make you go to the auctions and buy a turbo bar. I'm going to just stop the future of a show on it.

So what car was the future of? It's white. I can see that one. It's got a sister car, which is owned by the person I bought it off.

But he's spent a lot of money upgrading. He's a black one, which has a 5.8-liter. Everything done underneath. So he's taken it to a lot of car shows.

But yeah, it's a nice little car. Not a little, but it's a nice car. And to Hal's point about going sideways, because the tyres are thin, you don't need a lot of power. Because you're the hard top, you're the two-door.

You don't have to. They're awesome. So that's what the XR is as well. That's what Australia would have been the X-T.

X-T? XR or X-T. XR or X-T? Yeah, OK.

So they never came to Australia, but the X-T was. No, no. Very cool car. I think someone actually did a right hand drive or a conversion or one of using a local car.

Yeah, it's not. You can. Yeah. I think the.

I think that you're just going to find a local in which it's just a strip of everything back together. So if you're restoring the car, it's almost worth it. But you know, I've got to go. Because they're over 25 years, you can leave them as a left-hand drive.

Yeah. Yeah, so I'm looking forward to driving that. I'll stay away from that constable, just in case it's something else. Sorry, what'd you go on?

I'll say I'm really bad. I'll come and say about it. And the Mustang, how's that? We'll try to get some more looks future, or the Mustang.

I think the future, because it's different. Not many people have seen the two door or the left-hand drive. And it took me about half an hour on the phone with the RMS trying to register it, because they couldn't find it on their system. So they had to go somewhere between here, somewhere between there.

But coverage, I? Yeah, so I thought I was going to go. You're going to want to go on as a four-way. It's the catch rate.

60 bucks a year. But then you have to go to car shows, right? No, you don't know. You've got to be a member.

It's got to be a member. And have a long book. I'll tell you what. You have the case for me and people taking a car show down there.

And you find it, it's got to be a lot to play now. Yeah. So, is it going to be like Ferris Bueller's? You'll be putting it in reverse.

You can say Ferrari. We'll get an autorize for you. That is our Christmas present to you. We're going to say you're two grand a year between your great sleep and your insurance.

And you're out. Can you get customised plates and your styles? No, no. Damn it.

Because I put customised plates on the falcon. No, you don't need it. Because if you're only you want me some... You three years you don't need to know the real estate.

And when you come back, you want to drive every day, then you get the customised back. And considering you come up, because you get 60 days a year. 60 days? Driving a year.