Singapore’s First Closed Circuit For Cars Will Also Be A Plane Spotter’s Dream

The small island country of Singapore isn’t exactly known for its vast portions of spacious, unused countryside or curvy, uninterrupted backroads. Aside from a couple of reservoirs and airports, the entire main island is essentially a dense cityscape with tightly packed buildings, along with some areas of urban sprawl.

That means despite Singapore’s vast wealth and great taste in cars, there’s never been a permanent race track where owners could stretch their vehicle’s legs. The closest the country has gotten has been temporary street circuits. The first was the Thomson Road Grand Prix circuit, used from 1961 to 1973 to host Formula 2 races. It was shuttered due to safety concerns, and it wasn’t until 2008 that Singapore allowed another street circuit, the Marina Bay circuit, to emerge to host Formula 1 races (the latest race happened just last weekend; it was a fun one).

Once the race is over, the circuit is dismantled, and the roads are returned to the public, where they can be used as, well, roads. But that won’t be the case for Singapore’s latest track. Porsche revealed renders this week that show plans to build an Experience Center facility on a piece of land on the Northern end of the country’s airport, and it’ll include a road course—a permanent one.

When it opens in 2027, Porsche Experience Center Singapore will be the company’s 11th such facility worldwide, and the third in the Asia-Pacific region, joining facilities in Tokyo and Shanghai. These Experience Centers act as regional hubs for the brand, allowing current and prospective customers to try out cars, take delivery of their vehicles, get their cars serviced, or just hang out with like-minded Porsche-heads.

The company says the circuit will be over 1.2 miles long, and like other Experience Centers, will feature neat stuff on-site that’ll have you pushing the limits of whatever you’re driving:

The renders also tease other thrills: a technical double “S-curve” on the track that requires utmost discipline when keeping to the racing line, a dynamic handling area for learning emergency vehicle control, a low-friction handling track as well as drift circle for learning the basics of under- and oversteer control, and a banked corner where drivers can achieve up to 1.4 lateral Gs.

The facility also has what Porsche calls a “drive-through track experience” design, meaning part of the track passes through the building, which seems like it’d be pretty cool to experience from behind the wheel.

Don’t expect race cars to be lining up every weekend at PEC Singapore—like the company’s other facilities, this track will very likely be limited to single-file driving experiences, usually through lead-follow programs put on by Porsche itself. And if you don’t own a Porsche or plan to use one of the company’s cars, you probably won’t be allowed to drive on track. While that sounds a bit exclusionary, it is Porsche’s facility, so they make the rules.

No matter what you’re driving, the place seems like it would be a great place to spend time if you’re a plane enthusiast, seeing as how it’s literally right at the end of the Easternmost runway. I don’t pretend to know nearly as much about planes as our resident pilot, Mercedes Streeter, but I do know that Singapore Changi Airport is one of the busiest places in the world for air traffic, with all sorts of cool planes coming in and out of the facility daily. My personal favorite from the above video is the funky turboprop-powered, Dutch-built Fokker 50 flown by the Republic of Singapore Air Force, shown at around the six-minute mark.

Next time I have a layover in Singapore, I’m going to plan a longer layover so I can get a few laps in.

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