JPM Motorsports, organizer of the first ever Summernats in Malaysia, recently held a media event for journalists to get their hands behind the wheels of some of JP Chin’s collection. This event was held at JPM Museo, Kota Damansara.
JP Chin, founder of JPM Motorsports, gave the media a chance to view his personal collection of classic cars. He emphasized that during the upcoming Summernats 2014, visitors will be able to see some of these muscle cars up close and personal.
For this event, the media was invited to test drive some of JP Chin’s personal prized cars, an experience that even some of his own staff does not get! The only manual car that was in the convoy was his Ford Shelby GT500, a Gone In 60 Seconds Eleanor replica. It is also worth noting that a lot of his prized cars comes from the States as it is, so they remain left hand drive.
The convoy, with JP Chin up front, drove around Jalan Teknologi area to get a feel of what Summernats is all about. For some, it was cool to drive around in a left hand drive muscle car in Malaysia, but for me, it was practically memorable. To cut it short, I got my hands behind the wheel of the yellow Dodge Challenger R/T above, and being a muscle car fan myself, this is an opportunity of a lifetime.
The drive may be short, but the experience gave a lasting impression. Anthony Clark, Project Manager at JPM Motorsports briefed me about the Challenger, and the brakes. The brakes, at best, were almost non-existent. The driver would have to estimate the traffic ahead, and start pumping the brakes from quite a distance. Thankfully the Challenger came with an automatic transmission, so accidental stalling did not happen here. Anthony also mentioned that because the Challenger is a left hand drive model, drivers may find themselves wandering to the opposite lane, but I did not experience any of those. The Magnum 440 that’s under the hood is a 7.2L V8 which produced almost 400 hp, so wheelspins are abundant with this Challenger, not that I’ve tried.
Besides American Muscle cars, JP Chin also has several European performance and classic cars, like the Lamborghini Countach pictured above. This Countach is a late model LP500S variant, and has a gated 5 speed manual transmission.
You can view JP Chin’s cars up close and personal during this month’s Summernats at Sepang. It will be held from 29 – 30th August, and will be running alongside the annual Malaysia Merdeka Endurance Race (MMER).
Do stay tuned to Zerotohundred.com as we will bring you more news about MMER and Summernats 2014.
