A right Royal welcome for Bean team in tiger country

The car-loving, tiger-saving King of Malaysia has given The Daily Telegraph’s team Bean a royal welcome on the last overseas leg of the epic drive from London to Melbourne.

The car loving King of Malaysia has given The Daily Telegraph’s team Bean a royal welcome on the last overseas leg of the epic drive from London to Melbourne.

Sultan Ibrahim Iskandar of Johor posed for The Daily Telegraph’s cartoonist Warren Brown at his home before driving him and Editor at Large Matthew Benns to his palace for a personal tour of his car collection.

The King, known as the Agong, follows King Charles in giving his support to the team’s recreation of Francis Birtles’ 1927 drive in an identical Bean 14 roadster but was not keen to emulate it in one of his own classic cars.

“If you ask me to drive my 540k Mercedes from London to Melbourne I would say forget it because I don’t want to be standing on the highway hitchhiking,” he said.

In the Palace grounds there are cages housing several tigers rescued from plantations where they have been forced to move through loss of their jungle habitat.

Team Bean drivers Matthew Benns and Warren Brown at The Raffles Hotel in Singapore.

“I was mauled on my back and arm by one last year,” His Majesty said. He had been inspecting a cage and an improperly closed trap door let the tiger out.

“I felt a thump on my back and I punched it on the nose,” the 67-year-old monarch said. “He picked the wrong guy but I still had to go to hospital for 24 stitches.”

On the original journey from London to Melbourne Birtles shot a tiger in his jungle camp but today there are only 150 tigers left in the Malaysian jungles and they are under threat from habitat loss and poachers.

Singapore Zoo carnivore curator Anand Kumar said swine fever had killed the wild boars that are the tigers’ normal prey and they were being forced out of the forests towards humans. Two villagers were mauled to death in October.

“Once that happens they become man eaters and will keep coming back so they have to be caught and put in a sanctuary,” he said.

There are only 150 tigers left in the wild in Malaysia.

David Hashim, founder of Rimau, which means tiger in Malay, said he had 130 indigenous trackers armed with GPS phones walking in the jungles to find and report poachers.

“The biggest problem we are tackling is poachers who enter our jungles illegally and set snares to catch tigers which they can sell in China for $US50,000 a carcass. Every part of the tiger is valuable in Chinese medicine,” he said.

Unlike Birtles, The Daily Telegraph’s Bean team did not confront any tigers in the wild and reached Singapore to be greeted by a high rise modern marvel – a car vending machine packed with red Ferraris.

The Bean team with the King of Malaysia, Sultan Ibrahim Iskander of Johore.

Owner Gary Hong said he built the tower to showcase cars and use its giant four-storey, three sided billboard to create Singapore’s answer to Times Square in New York.

“It works exactly like a Coca-Cola vending machine except with cars,” he said. “Don’t worry, I will put the Bean on display but I won’t sell it.”

The giant illuminated display also highlighted the Royal Flying Doctor Service which has received more than $115,000 as a result of fund raising from the trip so far.

And it is far from over, the Bean is now on a ship to Darwin where it will begin the longest and hottest leg of the drive to Melbourne.

Follow the Birtles and the Bean journey live.