Supercar enthusiast and his well-used Bugatti

SINGAPORE – Mr Pov Leang, 44, reckons that his Chiron is the most heavily used Bugatti in Asia. His was one of two Bugattis at the Gumball 3000 Rally event, which saw more than 100 ultra-exclusive cars driving to Singapore from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

The convoy arrived at the Marina Bay Sands Convention Centre on Sept 21 to a large crowd of car enthusiasts who had been following the event’s progress on social media.

While the other 100 or so exotic cars were shipped back to where they came from on Sept 23, Mr Leang was said to have driven the Chiron back to Cambodia.

Since getting the Bugatti in April 2021, the Cambodian businessman has put around 12,000km on the clock.

Bugatti owners tend to be a secretive bunch, so it was impossible to independently verify Mr Leang’s claim. The French carmaker’s representative for the South-east Asia region declined to comment when asked.

But it is quite likely that Bugattis do not get used very much since their owners are not short of alternative models of transport.

In a 2014 interview with Bloomberg, Bugatti’s chief executive Wolfgang Durheimer said that his customers typically own 84 cars, three planes and one yacht.

The Chiron, in Mr Leang’s case, is among 15 supercars in his collection. These include a Lamborghini Huracan from 2015, which has over 20,000km on its odometer.

“The Lamborghini is my first supercar and I will never sell it,” Mr Leang says in a video call on Sept 13 from Phnom Penh, Cambodia, before his drive to Ho Chi Minh City to meet drivers of the other exotic cars participating in the Gumball Rally flag-off.

Married with four children aged between eight and 19, Mr Leang has kept nearly every supercar he has bought, except his McLaren 720S and Ferrari 488, which he sold a few years ago.

The Chiron is the second Bugatti model since the Volkswagen Group took ownership of the brand and launched the Veyron in 2005. The Veyron had more than 1,000hp and a top speed in excess of 400kmh.

Bugatti went further with the Chiron.

Its W16-cyilnder, 8-litre, quad-turbo engine makes 1,479hp, and it takes 2.4 seconds to get to 100kmh from rest. Just 500 Chirons in various guises were ever made between 2016 and 2024. According to Car and Driver magazine, the price of a Chiron starts at US$3.3 million (S$4.3 million) before options. 

In its normal setting, the Chiron has a maximum speed limited to 380kmh. To unlock the final 40kmh on the speedometer requires inserting a special key into a slot beside the driver’s seat. The steering must be pointing straight or the limiter will kick in. Finally, the car needs around 5 to 6km of road to achieve its top speed.

Mr Leang says, so far, he has managed to hit only 347kmh on an airport runway, when he was filming a TikTok video as part of the pre-event promotion for the Gumball Rally.

As the cluster president of Chip Mong Group, Mr Leang is more invested in the event than other participants.

The Cambodian conglomerate, which has businesses in hospitality, beverage and entertainment, among others, is Gumball’s partner for the Cambodia leg of the event. They are doing it with support from the country’s tourism ministry, Mr Leang adds.

He saw the event as a way to raise the profile of his country and preparations started in April.

“Gumball participants consist of key opinion leaders. They make lots of social media content that gets billions of views. And the world can see what is happening in Cambodia. If we can put up a good event, it proves that Cambodia is safe and has good infrastructure,” says Mr Leang.