Hey Sexy!

So this place has a pretty darn awesome range of cars on the road. Now I’m not a car freak, but when anyone sees some of these cars, you can’t help but exclaim ‘Oh, Wow!’. There are a few cars which are more or less common (pretty much every taxi is a Toyota Crown), but many are pretty rare, even in a small place like this. Sample these:

Mercedes E-class
Toyota Kompressor
Mazda 2
Mazda 3
Jaguar XE8 (S-w-e-e-e-e-t as in S-e-x-x-x-y!!)
Mitsubishi Lancer
Toyota Corolla
Toyota Altis
Citroen Mecane
Lexus RX200
Mitsubishi Grandis
Camry
Ferrari (image above)
Chrysler 300C
Mercedes S-class

To name just a few, that is. The Chrysler 300C (image above) was on display somewhere and it looks rich. As in, only rich people can afford it (obviously), but it looks well worth its plush interiors. An article in today’s paper compares it to the President of America’s Air Force One. I quote from Singapore’s Straits Times dated today:

Airports clear out for Air Force One to make its landing, just as hotel valets will shift the BMW 7-series and Merecedes-Benz S-class away for the 300C’s arrival.

On the ‘look at me’ scale, the 300C is a full runway ahead of the current pack of Audi, BMW, Lexus and Mercedes-Benz cars.

Anyway, cars in Singapore are ridiculously expensive even compared to India, where at least small cars are within the reach of the middle class. This is a ploy to reduce the number of cars on the road, since it is such a small place area-wise. In fact, every prospective car-owner has to pay around Singapore $20,000 for a Certificate of Eligibility, in addition to a minimum of Sing $60-70,000 for a small-sized car. Which is a lot of money, really – the equivalent of about Rs.20 lakhs or so.

But the ultimate in status symbols among car-owners over here at the moment is a Lexus, apparently. The Mercs are not really lah-di-dah enough.

Oh, well!!!