At Jalan Besar

By coincidence, another weekend plate R1 parked behind my car in one of the small streets along Jalan Besar. Not to miss a photo opportunity, decided to take a quick snap with my Panasonic Lumix LX-3 that I have handy. It's rare enough to drive an R1 on Singapore roads, what more finding two parked together. Unfortunately the overcast weather made it hard to distinguish the black body color of the car at the back with the gunmetal color of my R1 in this photo.



The other owner changed his wheels and tyres but I don't think they do much to the car's looks. I still like the original factory fitted stock six spoke rims. One interesting fact about the R1 is that the stock rim size (15 inch) is bigger compared to the 4-door R2. The R1 uses a hard to find 155/60 R15 tyre which is almost impossible to find locally, so many R1s here get shod with rubber of different width and aspect combinations. I think the only other car that uses the same stock tyres is the SMART car.

For those unfamiliar with tyre sizes, using the R1's 155/60 R15 as an example, the 155 refers to the tyre width in mm, the 60 is the aspect ratio of height in relation to width, R means radial construction and 15 is the tyre's inner diameter in inches. There is also a speed and load rating (eg. 82S) but given how light the car is and the fact that the R1 isn't gonna be breaking any speed records, we can safely ignore this rating.