Why a tour in this unique vehicle is the ultimate way to explore Singapore

I'm sitting in the buttock prints of Winston Duke, star of the Black Panther movie; one of the Weasley twins in the Harry Potter series; several Cantopop stars; and a member of Drew Barrymore's family.

And it's not every day you get to say that.

But all these celebrity and celebrity-adjacent types have preceded me as passengers in the very same silver sidecar that carries me around Singapore on a vintage Vespa sidecar tour of the heart of the city-state.

I'm picked up in Fort Canning Park, outside the historic METT Singapore hotel, by my guide, Singapore Sidecars' co-founder Simon Wong, who is riding a modified 175cc Vespa scooter with a sidecar clamped to the mainframe.

Singapore Sidecars is a social enterprise set up by Wong in memory of his wife Pei Qi, who died of stomach cancer in 2008, at the age of 35. "She was too young to pass away without a trace," says Wong.

Outside a shophouse in Singapore, Wong had noticed a pair of beautifully restored Vespa sidecars, which had been locally assembled in about 1965. He partnered with the restorer, Johnny Chen, to take the sidecars to cancer-charity events, where Singaporeans - largely unfamiliar with the vehicles - loved to have their pictures taken with them.

People pretended to have been run over by them. "We had a bloke doing a headstand in one," says Wong. They posted the rare and curious images on social media, which amplified the charities' message.

And I get it: throughout my hour-long sidecar journey, people smile and focus their phones. When we stop outside a landmark for Wong to frame my Insta-worthy photograph, locals take pictures of Wong taking pictures of me.

We ride past Boat Quay, beneath the neoclassical public buildings of the colonial Civic District, then stop over the Singapore River in front of Empress Place and a lovely memorial bench to Pei Qi outside the Asian Civilisations Museum.

We accelerate into a stretch of road that forms part of the Marina Bay Street Circuit for the Singapore Formula One Grand Prix. The local speed limit for sidecars is 50kmh, but velocity seems much greater in an open vehicle that rides so close to the ground. It's exhilarating, and I feel a bit like one of those nodding dogs that drivers used to display in the rear windows of their cars before they started decorating them with irritating images of stick families.

Wong plans for me to have my picture taken with Narajan Singh, the famous tall and liveried white-turbaned Sikh doorman who has greeted guests for 34 years at Raffles Singapore.

Unfortunately, when we arrive at Raffles, Narajan is not around, so I have my picture taken with a slightly less famous tall and liveried white-turbaned Sikh doorman instead.

The writer was hosted by METT Singapore