The Malayan-built Special has always been an integral part of the racing movement in that part of the world, yet it is an aspect of the motoring scene that is least understood and often neglected. Initially, these Specials were simply “cobbled” together using bits from what was available, usually a Fiat for its sweet handling, a side-valve Ford V-8 engine, nicely crated in large quantity for the military, or an MG with its ancient ladder-frame chassis with easy-to-obtain gearbox and axle. Later on, an element of engineering was involved in the choice of suspension and chassis.
The first Special appeared in Singapore at the Farrer Road Speed Trials in 1938, built by a young engineer by the name of Lim Peng Han. Lim showed a talent for putting an attractive shell into a road-going chassis and turning the contraption into a race winner. His work attracted the attention of fellow racers, and he soon received requests to build such Specials faster than he could actually build them, particularly when his creations tended to do well at the sprints and hillclimb events.
After the Japanese surrender and the resumption of club racing in Malaya, Lim’s L.A. Specials continued to circulate, still fairly successful, no doubt led by his own No. 27 Maserati-looking L.A. Special, a prewar Sunbeam-Talbot 10 chassis mated to a side-valve Ford V-8 engine with Fiat 1500 front end and rock-solid rear suspension. Terminal overheating put an end to that chapter. The next phase of development would take place after the formation of the Singapore Motor Club in February 1948.
The arrival of the motorcycle-engined racecar in the form of the British-made Cooper JAP instantly made the locally built Special obsolete. However, this did not stop the enthusiast or the local fabricators from fashioning some of the most attractive shapes to grace racecars of that period very much in the vein of Max Balchowsky’s Old Yallers. The Cooper JAP was the new weapon of desire even though it was but a baby cot with a high-strung JAP motorcycle engine installed in the rear. Even Lim Peng Han understood that his L.A. Specials were now obsolete, and he too followed the rear-engine revolution with the purchase of a second-hand Kieft MkI-A JAP. Lim developed it as best as he could, but still found the handling less than desirable. A new Special would emerge from his Penhas Lane garage, as he systematically dismembered the Kieft, slipped in an Auster aircraft chassis (or part thereof), snuck in a supercharger (presumably with the engine from the old Kieft as well), and promply turned it into his “Lim Special.”
For the whole story, see the May issue of Vintage Racecar.
