custom plates in China

Licence plates pricier than small car 
 

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Number plates in Shanghai now cost more than a small car in China. 
 
Over the weekend, about 9,000 people bid for 6,000 car plate numbers, which were snapped up at an average price of 47,711 yuan (3,150 pounds), according to Xinhua news agency.
That's more than the 39,800 yuan price tag for Chery Automobile Co.'s 1.1 litre-engine QQ subcompact, one of China's hottest-selling compact cars.
It is also more than twice the per-capita disposable annual income in the city, China's richest, and the highest average price since Shanghai started the monthly auction in 2002 to limit traffic in the congested city.
Xinhua did not give the highest price in the licence plate auction but said the lowest was 47,200 yuan.
Other Chinese cities auction off auspicious plate numbers such as those featuring the number "8", which sounds similar to the expression "to get rich".
On Sunday, a man bought the number A000A1 for 420,000 yuan for his Mercedes-Benz in the southern metropolis of Guangzhou, local media said. The initial bidding price was 5,000 yuan.
A pilot scheme for customised numbers in four cities, including the capital Beijing, was scrapped days after its launch in 2002, however, after Chinese drivers created such inventive combinations as FBI001, SEX001 and IAM007 for their licence plates.

WOW..thats crazy.

Not surprising... I believe the combination '888' here is worth several million here in Australia
 
Its funny, a culture that places so much importance on 'lucky charms' and things that are supposed to bring you fortune, end up wasting their money so easily on these trinkets!

[QUOTE=Dominik;68215]Not surprising... I believe the combination '888' here is worth several million here in Australia
 
Its funny, a culture that places so much importance on 'lucky charms' and things that are supposed to bring you fortune, end up wasting their money so easily on these trinkets![/QUOTE]

LOL!! 'lucky charms'..the combinations usually goes with numbers such as 6, 8, & 9..or maybe more?

Well maybe lucky charms wasnt the right term... But my gf's parents (chinese malaysian) insist we have all these things hanging near our door, and they vetoed my lounge furniture arrangement because it was bad Feng Shui (didnt invite money into our house??!)
 
I'm still trying to figure out the 168 combination on numberplates though...

I was in Hong Kong on vacation before they changed  to China.......... Back then they told me the lower the number the more it cost $$$$ and thats how they showed off what kind of money they had. Bragging Rights............ looks like it spilled over to all of China now.

yea, ure right robert, from what i knew rite, it was usually the south-east asia (the chinese) believed in those kinda numbers, never know the chinese china already influenced by this, haha

I remember reading about this a few years ago. Some guy had this old as benz but had a low numbered plate stating he was a baller. Pretty crazy if you ask me.