00:00My grandfather, in his life, never had a new car in his life, so he's always buying second-hand whatsoever.
00:06So in a way, as you can imagine, that is a complete reverse motivation to my father,
00:11as compared to me. He wanted to buy something new, he wanted to buy something that he loves.
00:30My name is TJ, TJ Chin. We are in my museum. This is called JPM Museum.
00:36JPM Museum is a place that we store the family cars and bikes.
00:42The museum is not our job. Our job is to pay for the museum, so we are doing other business to pay for the museum.
00:49So we are in the fuel industry, we are in the industry of information technology,
00:54we are in the industry for property development, we are also in the industry for some automotive work,
01:00more on restoration and so on, we have some fintechs and so on. So those are the things that we do.
01:06The family, the father, in my side, my father has been following cars since he was a teenager.
01:14He fell in love with a car called the 240Z, which of today is a very high value collection item,
01:21and I think that's the reason why he fell in love. The car looks fantastic. Every automotive guy,
01:27the automotive is like a family member. Some say their wife, some say their girlfriend,
01:33every automotive guy will keep pride in keeping their vehicles clean and tidy. A couple of years
01:39when my father had some success in life, I was 17 years old when I started racing.
01:47So at 17 years old, we started to get into the idea of automotive purely from the racing side,
01:54so like any kids around that age of mine, you will be influenced by a series called Animation
02:01Series called Initial D, you will be looking at PlayStation, Gran Turismo, you'll be playing
02:07up all these kind of things that deepen our interest in cars. Since then, we've started to
02:12deep dive into car design, how it works mechanically, electrically, how it drives,
02:19and so on. So that's how the interest took shape and lasts until today.
02:28We learned how to drive in one of the cars down there, which is a Mazda AutoZen, Japanese K-Car,
02:34manual, racing clutch, difficult car to learn. Nevertheless, that was our foundation of driving,
02:40and I think I recall when I first started to drive, it was actually a national car,
02:44a Proton that had a manual gearbox that I think I drove for six months to a year. My father gave me
02:52an Alfa 147. Then after I got myself into racing, actually it happened a lot less. So I just drive
03:00anything that was in the family, could be a Japanese car, could be a German car, doesn't
03:05matter. So we drove that. It only took a long time after that I finally got myself a Nissan GT-R,
03:12a 35, that I bought on my own to enjoy it. Then every now and then, I would try to look at
03:18something else to buy, and as usual, before I buy it, the car is already in the house. So that's a
03:22bit of a challenge there, but it's, I suppose, for the better. In a way, so that's when it comes
03:28to the car purchasing or the car experience, that's the story of it.
03:34Other than the initial planting of this interest of cars by the 240Z, since then, he took it upon
03:42himself to wanting to own a car that he's liking. So the family started off with a bit of a humble
03:49background. My grandfather, in his life, never had a new car in his life, so he's always buying
03:54second-hand whatsoever. So in a way, as you can imagine, that is a complete reverse motivation to
04:00my father as compared to me. He wanted to buy something new, he wanted to buy something that
04:05he loves. So the 240Z was a planting of a seed, but no one had the chance to buy a new car unless,
04:15like me, with privilege, that he had that. So what happened to him was that when he had the
04:20chance to do so in his teenage years, he started to buy bikes. And then from bikes, when he studied
04:26in the UK, he started to buy four-wheel vehicles, cars. I recall, I think if I'm not wrong, one of his
04:32first purchases was an Alfa, which was influenced by the fact that it looks fantastic and also
04:40he's married then, but no harm having a car that seeks women's attention. So that was, I think, the
04:46very first thing that got him into collecting cars. So he'll buy an Alfa, he'll buy a unique
04:54piece every now and then, just so that he fulfills the automotive dream in him. When we start to
05:00wanting to collect cars now, we still pick things that are modern, but we only do it, say, if there is a
05:06collection value. Now collection value is a bit of a guessing game. You think it does, it may not have,
05:13so we win some, we lose some. Sometimes we win, for example, we collect some Porsche G3 RS.
05:20Those are currently, at least for now, still appreciating asset. We collect some limited edition
05:26AMG Black Series. We think it's an appreciating asset. At the same time, we also had some modern
05:32supercars like an Aventador that doesn't retain the value as much as we want to. We started to
05:40be a bit more picky of what we collect. At the same time, while we are moving away from the modern,
05:44what we do is we go back to some of the more classic or some of the more unique pieces
05:50that create some sentimental value, or for that matter,
05:54maybe there are some stories behind that kind of vehicle kind of collection.
06:01First, collection is quite emotional, so it has to be emotionally appealing to one. Emotionally
06:07appealing to one could be maybe it's a car that we liked when we were younger, so now we want to
06:13own it. There are some vehicles that even I wanted to own, if I need the right time to do it in terms
06:20of price. That's something we want to do. Or for that matter, it may just appeal to you from an aesthetic
06:25standpoint. Some cars have a sex appeal to people who like cars. You see it, you like it, you want to
06:31own it, so that's another choice. Some may be a story behind the vehicle that is unique, that you
06:39want to collect it. There's a few pieces in the museum that is with that kind of background,
06:45so it's very much on that. We feel if it's something that appeals to us as enthusiasts,
06:50it most likely appeals to other enthusiasts too. So naturally, there should be an investment value.
06:54So that's how we curate the collection.
06:57My brother told me earlier it was $186,000. I'm not so sure if he has it correct because a while back, we know the number were higher, but then again, they are in and out, so it is possible.
07:11The reason we did not take account of it is because the KONG collections are probably there to stay.
07:18Some of the ones that you see in my background are there to stay. They're there to stay because we had
07:22sentimental value of it, although it probably appreciated from an investment standpoint.
07:28The general idea is, what do we do if we sell it? So we probably can't get the same sentiment
07:34collection, so we keep it in that sense. Because of that reason itself, there's a fixed number of
07:38vehicles that we know is going to be around. Then you will have vehicles that maybe at times,
07:43we transition it quite frequently, things that we use maybe daily. So sometimes, we have a car that
07:49we felt we grown our love of it, so we start to sell it, or for that matter, something that maybe
07:54we use more daily, we start to sell it. So the vehicles move in and out quite frequently.
07:58We collect it in more organized meaning, we started to create teams around the collection.
08:03Italian for German floor, Japanese floor, British floor, and we start creating a team of it. We
08:09started to acquire the vehicles in maybe a more opportunistic fashion. That means we see an
08:16opportunity, we buy it, and usually when we buy it, we do not actually have a limit of what we buy.
08:21So example, there's a floor for American vehicles. We bought like 40 or 50 within two months. So the
08:29fact that I say 50 to 40, we don't actually remember how many we buy. We just found,
08:32seems like a good deal, seems like a nice collection, we pick.
08:38It doesn't matter if you collect one or you collect, in our instance,
08:42quite a few. You fell in love with a vehicle that you've seen, whether it's in website,
08:49in newspaper, magazine, or for that matter, YouTube and so on. You look at the car. I recently have
08:55this example. It's a Chinese car. You may know them. It's called BYD. BYD had an electric car.
09:04I was not familiar with Chinese brand. So one day, I was having a breakfast with my wife,
09:11and I was parked on the roadside, and then I saw this particular black car. Looks fantastic
09:17looking. So I was like, what is this? So I saw it's a BYD, Chinese car. It's very interesting.
09:24And I started to do some research into it. I ended up buying another electric car,
09:30but I still intend to buy a BYD in time to come. I fell in love with the car. It's just that
09:36I've made certain choices now. In time to come, I wanted a BYD CO2. I think it's a very nice
09:42looking car. I ordered a Tesla, just in case you wonder. You ordered a Tesla? I ordered a Tesla,
09:48but I told my wife, in time to come, I probably will get a BYD too. Every time you hop around
09:54to the car that you had that passion for, you will find a renewed feeling of it. So example,
10:00I mentioned my GTR. I had a car since 2018. And like I shared the example, for the first,
10:07maybe a year of ownership, you drive it quite frequently. And then you start doing little
10:12things onto it. And then you start to get to a point that, okay, a bit, I wouldn't, jaded is
10:18too strong a word, but you get the point. A bit jaded. So you start to drive the car lesser.
10:23In my instance, it was because it's slightly less practical, two doors and so on, and quite loud,
10:30and so on. So I started to drive it a bit lesser. But the feeling is interesting. Once you drive it
10:37lesser, but every time you hop into it, you'll find that initial feel and passion.
10:45Tesla is one. So, okay, so there's two schools of thought. People who love automotive,
10:52I found it interesting that they are not so for EV. For me, interestingly, maybe I'm in
10:58software business. I'm actually quite, quite supportive of the EV cars. But the challenge
11:03with EVs is, you see the price of EV have come down quite a lot. Back in the days, EV, for example,
11:11we used to have a Taycan, Porsche Taycan. I love the car. I think it's one of the closest
11:17experience to Bugatti. And then we sold it just before the price starting to drop.
11:23The only thing I have to give in to the critics of EV car is, the value retention at this point
11:29in time is still not there. So in a sense, if you're purchasing it as an investment or something
11:34to keep, it may be a bit of a challenge. But to me, I feel some of the brands have come to a price
11:41point where it's a bit more stable. So those are the reason why I feel that in time to come,
11:46I may be able to collect a few more, or maybe when the market has matured, they will have an idea how
11:52the replacement of those car will be.
11:58I suppose in like any dynamics of human relationship, you always have a check and
12:04balance. So in most family, I think the general idea is the children wanted the car, the father
12:12will be more conservative about it. In this family, it's a bit of a reverse.
12:18The father is more passionate, the children is more prudent, in that sense. But I suppose
12:26everything has a face. My youngest brother, TM, is very passionate in terms of restoring Porsches.
12:34So in a way, while I'm looking forward in the more modern automotive, he is looking in a more
12:41historical context. And because of that pivot, I'm sure we will find interesting cars to collect,
12:50to restore, to keep into the collection. So in that sense, I don't imagine that we will be ever
12:56done with the collection. If anything, we are hoping that we can find the financial and also
13:02the economic power to continue this particular family hobby, if you will, something to keep the
13:09family talking to each other.
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