‘With this wheel, I thee wed’: Cool couples with hot wheels in Singapore

SINGAPORE – Jovial and expressive, Mr Kelvin Ngian and Ms Charmaine Cheong are not the kind of life partners who hide their emotions.

They met at a Halloween party in 2020. Mr Ngian says he was “mesmerised by her beautiful eyes”.

“Really? I don’t remember. Maybe he was just forgettable,” Ms Cheong quips.

Weeks later, he saw her Instagram Story about losing her phone in Geylang. He rushed over to help in her search, seizing the opportunity to be her “knight in shining armour”.

Her phone was eventually found, and she was charmed by his kindness and “thought he suddenly looked a lot more handsome”. That episode kicked off the courtship, with the Land Rover Defender 90 playing a role and ultimately serving as their wedding car in November 2025.

Mr Ngian, 41, bought the Defender 90 in December 2020 to replace his Subaru WRX that he had owned for seven years. With frequent breakdowns, the WRX was becoming increasingly troublesome and he wanted something more rugged, leaving his “boy racer” ways behind.

He paid $85,000 for the Land Rover with a certificate of entitlement that was freshly renewed for another 10 years. He spent $10,000 to refresh the vehicle, including putting in the rock sliders, 34-inch off-road-ready tyres and a new coat of paint called French Racing Blue.

The Defender serves as Mr Ngian’s delivery vehicle for his food and beverage distribution business, as well as for dates with Ms Cheong.

When they started dating amid the pandemic, their early outings included socially distanced picnics.

Mr Ngian would pack field chairs, cooler boxes of food and drinks and a portable stove, and they would enjoy a home-cooked meal in lush greenery, with the Defender by their side.

The Defender brought out the spirit of adventure in Ms Cheong, a self-confessed city girl, who began to enjoy outdoor dates. She also grew fond of the Defender, which she found to be “macho, full of charm and character, like my husband”.

The 32-year-old marketing manager can now effortlessly hop onto the Defender in her heels and dress, a far cry from before – she once tore her skirt climbing on board.

She is learning to drive and hopes to take over her ageing father’s role as the family chauffeur. Who knows? She may just take the wheel of the Defender some day after getting her licence.

“Until then, I am happy to be his passenger princess,” she says, beaming at her beau.

Contrasting sharply with the towering and rugged Defender is Mr Kevan Tan’s bridal car. The 30-year-old and Ms Hannah Sim, 28, who got married in December 2025, chose the low-slung Toyota Supra as their wedding car.

The Supra is Mr Tan’s fourth car since getting his driving licence six years ago. Mr Tan, who works in the finance industry, previously owned a Kia K3, a Honda Civic and a Subaru BRZ. He bought the pre-owned Supra for $200,000 with an annual depreciation that works out to $29,000.

His car purchases reflect his need for speed. While a car with manual transmission would have been the ideal choice for the purist, Mr Tan stuck to automatic transmission cars.

Ms Sim is no less a car enthusiast. The marketing manager grew up influenced by her petrolhead dad and has a penchant for Japanese Domestic Market (JDM) cars.

She particularly likes two-door coupes, nudging her husband towards the two-door Subaru BRZ after he sold the Honda Civic.

Other than participating in local motor sports events, Mr Tan also joined the car enthusiast community and learnt more about modifications and car set-ups.

Many of these drivers hang out at the Fujiwara Tofu Concept Shop Singapore, a Japanese car anime-inspired cafe in Geylang. The couple even took their pre-wedding photos with the Supra parked in front of the shop.

“One advantage of marrying a fellow car enthusiast is that there are no objections whenever I want to upgrade car parts,” says Mr Tan, who has installed Rays rims on his BRZ and Verus wings on his Supra.

She has her own strong views on cars. Mr Tan ended up with the Supra because she had vetoed his original choice, the rally-inspired Toyota GR Yaris performance hatchback.

“Happy wife, happy life,” he says wryly before adding that the Supra is also one of his dream cars.

Mr Tan and Ms Sim met via a dating app in January 2021 and dated for six months before committing to a relationship. By the end of 2021, they were balloting for a Housing Board flat, and got their matrimonial home in 2024.

Besides their love for cars, they also share a love for cats and are proud “pawrents” to a brown tabby named Mew, which they rescued, and a ragdoll named Mizu that they adopted from a friend.

Today, the cat lovers still drive around to feed stray cats on some date nights.

Meanwhile, the love story of veteran driving ace Felix Lim and his wife Charmain Hng, both 48, is a classic tale of teenage romance blossoming into marriage.

As 18-year-olds, they were hanging out with separate groups of friends at Ngee Ann City in Orchard Road when Mr Lim approached Ms Hng.

“There were no dating apps back then. You had to actually talk to the girl,” he says.

“It was 1995. We exchanged pager numbers and chatted on the phone every night before Felix asked me to be his girlfriend after 17 days,” recounts Ms Hng.

They reminisced that this was before alphanumeric pagers came along, and coded messages were sent in the form of numbers.

Mr Lim was riding a Honda NSR motorcycle back then, with Ms Hng as the pillion rider. Both loved adrenaline, so developing an interest in race cars was a natural progression for them.

They would buy Japanese racing magazines such as Drift Tengoku even though they did not understand the language. They would try to decipher the racing techniques and car set-ups by looking at the pictures.

“There was no Google Translate,” Mr Lim says.

Mr Lim bought his first car, a three-year-old Nissan S14 for $70,000 at the age of 24. This kicked off his motor sports journey with drift events in Malaysia. Ms Hng would tag along, and they sharpened their skills together.

However, Ms Hng soon realised that while she enjoyed the thrill of drifting, she did not enjoy the intensity of competitive motor sports. She switched to the role of “spotting” for her man during races.

The couple, who got married in February 2007, have developed a formidable partnership on the racetrack.

As a spotter, Ms Hng observes the strengths and flaws of her husband and his competitors to strategise a race plan.

“As his wife, I know his temperament best and know when and how to talk to him as pressure mounts during the competitions. It helps for a loved one to be giving advice,” says Ms Hng, who is a financial services director. They do not have children.

Today, Mr Lim, who runs a construction firm, races competitively about six times a year. Some of his more memorable exploits include Formula Drift in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. He is also setting his sights on the Thailand D1 GP, as he feels the standard there is among the highest in Asia.

“Every podium finish, regardless of the size of the competition, is hard fought. I treasure every trophy,” he adds.

Crashes are part and parcel of racing, though Ms Hng still worries when Mr Lim gets into an accident. At a drift event in Melaka in 2018, Mr Lim suffered two mishaps in a single day. One of his race cars caught fire while the second one crashed.

Ms Hng recalls running to the crash site in panic and was relieved to see him emerge unscathed. She gave him an earful as she felt that the accident was down to a driver’s error and could have been avoided.

Today, Mr Lim drives a Nissan GT-R as his daily car, while Ms Hng’s daily ride is a Mercedes-AMG E43.

Still, their most memorable car remains the Nissan Sileighty, which they imported as an unmodified used car from Japan for $15,000 in 2007.

While the car has since been replaced by the newer Silvia S15 for the tougher overseas competitions, it is still used in local gymkhana events and Mr Lim remembers it fondly as his first race car.

Besides motor sports, the couple share other high-energy passions such as wakeboarding, snowboarding and diving.

“These activities let us spend so much time together in our nearly two decades of marriage,” says Ms Hng.

Mr Lim agrees, saying: “In particular, we depend on each other during racing, which strengthens our love and trust in each other.”