Thai Actor Speeds and Brags About It - Krish Suwannaphab

This has to be one of the craziest articles I've seen in The Nation in some time. What I am surprised at is that there isn't even a single hint throughout the piece that there is anything wrong with this Thai actor's idea of priorities.

The basic idea in this story is that people with time constraints on their lives should "tune up" their cars so that the "have a lot of performances now". In the case of this actor this "lot of performances" in his 1995 BMW E36 allows him to be a responsible actor, by being on time for his work. That sounds great, but what happens when you kill someone on the way to your "shoot".

Check this out:

"He said his Beemer hit a top speed of 260kph during a test run on the Expressway to Pattaya after his car's tuning was completed.

"In fact, I could rev it up more, but I slowed it down first. I'm looking for an M3 speedometer. I'm not a fast driver, but the time crunch forces me to speed up. My investment of Bt350,000 gives me some time to rest.

So there we have it. I should get rid of my slow car, and get something that can do 260km/h so that I have some time to rest!! I would rather rest in the time that this guy will be working to pay for the investment, and drive safely the rest of the time.

Would any traffic police officer reading this please take this guy off the road!

Watch out for more headlines like this one soon:
Sornram Kills Woman in Car Crash

Here is the link to the Article on The Nation website.

Here is the article in full just in case you can't access it there:

Fine performance

Actor trades in his pickup for a BMW, then modifies it to meet his time constraints

Published on January 30, 2008

These days, many careers face a time-crunch problem, and acting is one of them. That's why Krish Suwannaphab had his car tuned up so that he could shorten his travelling time.

"I have a lot of performances now, and I have to manage my time efficiently to coordinate with each production crew. My time is important. I don't want to become one of those actors who come in late and don't take responsibility for their work. Some days, I have to shoot in Bangkok and then travel upcountry," he said.

He now drives a BMW E36 that first hit the road in 1995.

"I drove a pickup in recent years, because diesel used to be cheaper than petrol. But I changed to my BMW E36 once petrol and diesel cost the same, because I thought driving the pickup did not save time. I bought the BMW last year," he said.

He replaced its original 1.8-litre engine with a new one on his friend's advice that the original engine was quite old and would guzzle oil.

"My friend initially suggested I use a Japanese engine, but I thought it weird to have a Japanese motor in a European car. One day, I bumped into a friend of mine who drives the same model as I do, and he replaced his original engine with a more modern BMW

one. I thought his idea would work," he said.

He then decided to spend Bt350,000 to replace the original engine with one for an M3 that could pump out 300 horsepower.

"I like driving stick shift, and this engine was the only one with specs that were compatible with a manual transmission. It took around three months to install it and connect the wires.

The garage also reset my car suspension after I changed to using Koni springs to cope with the more powerful engine. I also changed to 19-inch tyres rated 235/35/R19. I did not change anything else," he said.

He said his Beemer hit a top speed of 260kph during a test run on the Expressway to Pattaya after his car's tuning was completed.

"In fact, I could rev it up more, but I slowed it down first. I'm looking for an M3 speedometer. I'm not a fast driver, but the time crunch forces me to speed up. My investment of Bt350,000 gives me some time to rest.

I hardly could take even a short break when I drove the pickup, because it was not fast. Most importantly, my present car's oil consumption is on a par with the pickup, so I think it was worth the money," he added.

Thanadol Rila

The Nation