Motormouth: Majulah Singapura, may our nation progress further and create our own national car for SG65

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Hyundai Motor Group has a fancy factory in Jurong assembling state-of-the-art electric vehicles, but Singapore should think bigger and get creative with the first truly Singaporean car.

There is a local urban legend that Creative Technology once created a concept car of sorts to showcase some of its electronic wizardry. 

This was eons ago in the 1980s, when we still had Centrepoint Kids and most people had pagers instead of handphones, which were pricey “big brother big” devices for the privileged few.

More than a few folks must have seen the Creative car when it supported the company at exhibitions, but their long-term memory was possibly as poor as the 64KB random access memory of the era’s Cubic 99 personal computer.  

After the mystery machine completed its tour of duty, it was parked at a corner of Creative headquarters in Jurong East, placed under a silver cover and eventually forgotten when several long years went by.

Not everyone forgot about it, though. Another local urban legend has it that a Creative product developer, who was freelancing for a motoring magazine at the time, let the editor take a peek under the sheet covering the abandoned Creative car.

It appeared to be a two-bit two-seater, whose cabin had a mass of wires that looked like multi-coloured cobwebs, surrounding a computer monitor or two, and perhaps a keyboard and a motherboard, too. There might also have been several Sound Blaster cards strewn over the dusty dashboard. 

Apparently, and thankfully, the two curious guys snooping around in the basement carpark of Creative HQ were not intercepted by security guards using weaponised Bluetooth blasters. 

Maybe the Creative product guy in question managed to disable the security cameras with a nifty little gadget he made from an old television remote, two new AA batteries and three paper clips.  

Such technical creativity would be useful when Singapore gets down to making our first domestic car, which would make its official debut in 2030 when it brings our President to the SG65 National Day Parade.    

What should we call Singapore’s first national car? 

We could rehire the same global branding firm which concluded that the best name for our then-upcoming new downtown at Marina Bay is “Marina Bay”. 

Or we could run a contest for Singapore citizens to “Name our national car to win one” and then select from the three most popular choices, which hopefully won’t include “ATTO 65” or “BrueSG”.   

To design and build the newly-named car, the Singapore Government could rely on a public-private partnership that mobilises/incentivises Singaporean companies to perform “national service”. 

DBS can bankroll the business, JTC can set up and operate the production plant, Osim can craft the on-board armchairs, Creative can engineer the in-car entertainment, and ST Kinetics can handle the vehicle development.

Scientists seconded from A*Star should be able to perfect the automotive world’s first engine that runs on NEWater and is tuned to become more powerful when the tank is topped up with Tiger Beer.   

Exhaustive road tests of the camouflaged prototypes (complete with VEP) would be done across the Causeway, with stacks of ringgit in every glovebox for the test-driver to settle speeding offences on the spot, preferably with receipts for the accounts department. 

On the way back to Singapore, the road-test team members would refuel on the cheap and also evaluate the car’s cargo capacity by loading it with bargain groceries for their colleagues. 

Sales of the home-grown Singapore car would start on 9 August 2030. There won’t be physical showrooms; only digital configurators and driving simulators at roadshows in FairPrice Finest supermarkets, with ex-SQ stewardesses doing the selling. "Coffee, tea or COE?" 

Best of all, buyers would get special permission to use CPF money to finance their new SG65 car.

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