If dinner is at 8 pm and there's a wine list involved, the Valentine's Day car is an easy call: book a chauffeur and let someone else worry about the car park. If you're both sober and the drive is the date, rent something low with two seats. Most plans fall into one of those two, and a few need something in between.
If either of you is drinking
Book a car with a driver. Grandpride's long-wheelbase Mercedes-Benz S-Class costs RM 300 an hour with a chauffeur, and the white BMW i7 is RM 600 an hour. You book by the hour, with a three-hour minimum.
Evening hours cost more. An hour that starts between 7 pm and 11 pm is charged at +30%, and one that starts between 11 pm and 7 am at +50%. Pick-up at 7.30 pm, dinner, a slow drive past the city lights and home by 11 puts every hour in the +30% band. The price you're quoted already includes that, and only a RM 50 booking fee is paid online: the rest you pay in store or in person.
The chauffeur waits while you eat, so there's no parking to find and no queue for an e-hailing car outside a full restaurant at 10.30 pm. Drink-driving penalties in Malaysia went up sharply in 2020, and our guide to the drink-driving law has the figures. For a sense of what a full evening costs, see hourly chauffeur pricing in KL.
If it's just the two of you and the drive is the point
Take a coupé or a roadster. Four doors and a big back seat are wasted on two people.
- Porsche 718 Cayman S, RM 2,800 a day. Two seats and a mid-mounted engine. Our pick for a couple who like driving.
- Aston Martin DB11, RM 7,700 a day. A grand tourer, better for a long drive out of town than for city streets.
- Mercedes-Benz SLK 250 at RM 1,000 or BMW Z4 at RM 1,500 a day, if you want the roof off. Have a plan for when it rains.
The rest of the coupés are on the coupé list, from RM 1,000 a day for a Mercedes-Benz C200 Coupe. Every rental includes 120 km a day, which covers dinner in KL and a drive up to a view point with plenty to spare.
If the car is the present
The snag is that only the named renter can drive a Grandpride self-drive car. If your partner is going to drive it, the booking has to be in their name with their driving details, which takes some of the mystery out CHECK: can a booking be made by one person in the driver's name, with the driver's documents checked at handover?.
There are two ways round it. You can be the driver and make them the passenger, which keeps the secret intact. Or you hand over a voucher-style printout of the booking on the day and let them collect the car with you.
Delivery helps the reveal. Grandpride delivers free within 10 km of the Petaling Jaya showroom and for RM 100 elsewhere in the Klang Valley, so the car can turn up at home or at the office CHECK: can delivery be timed to a specific hour, including evenings?. Our birthday surprise guide has more on timing a surprise around a delivery.
If you'd rather leave town for the night
Make it a two-day booking and drive somewhere quieter. Fraser's Hill, Melaka and the coast at Port Dickson are all within an easy drive of KL; our list of weekend getaways from KL has more. Add a mileage package if the round trip plus the driving around will run past 120 km a day, and bring the car back with the same fuel level it left with.
For two people and two small bags, the DB11 or a Bentley Continental GT at RM 4,400 a day suits a longer drive better than a mid-engine car with two small boots.
If Valentine's lands near Chinese New Year
Some years 14 February falls in or close to the Chinese New Year period, and the fifteenth night of the new year, Chap Goh Mei, is itself called Chinese Valentine's Day in Malaysia. Traditionally, single women threw oranges into lakes and rivers that night in the hope of finding a husband; these days single people of any gender join in. If your plans span both, book the car for both dates at once, and read our Chinese New Year rental guide for the festive side.
When to book
Chauffeur bookings made online need at least two days' notice, so for the evening of the 14th, book on the website by the 12th at the latest. For a self-drive car, pick 14 February on the vehicle list: anything already booked shows as not available, and each car's page greys out the days it's taken.
