'AK-47' sells for Rs.3.10 lakh

In Chandigarh, India, 'AK-47' sells for Rs.3.10 lakh

Chandigarh, Oct 10 (IANS) This 'AK-47' finally sold in an open auction for Rs.3.10 lakh against a reserve price of just Rs.10,000! And it has nothing to do with the Kalashnikov automatic weapons.

A Punjab-based religious sect Friday picked up the 'AK-47' as registration number for a luxury car.

It is the latest number series launched in Chandigarh. The actual number reads 'CH01-AK-0047'. The idea of having the 'AK-47' for a high-end luxury car has again shown the Punjabi fetish for fancy numbers.

The registration and licensing authority (RLA) in Chandigarh which auctions fancy numbers for vehicles, ended up with cash of over Rs.48 lakh as 93 of these numbers were auctioned Friday. The number 0007 went for Rs.4.21 lakh, while 0005 went for Rs.3.25 lakh. Number 0001 went for a lower Rs.3.1 lakh.
Chandigarh resident Narinder Singh Shergill became the first one in the region in May last year to break the Rs.10 lakh barrier to get the vehicle registration number of his choice - 0001.

Shergill's adventure in picking up the expensive number cost him half the price of the Toyota Fortuner sports utility vehicle that he bought for around Rs.20 lakh. He picked up the number in the 'CH01-AC' series.

'I was shocked, initially, when I learnt that he (Shergill) had bought the 0001 number at such a high cost. At this price, we could have bought another luxury car or two mid-segment cars,' Shergill's wife Jaskaran Kaur had said at that time.

Chandigarh has the distinction of having one of the highest densities of motor vehicles in the country. For a population of just over 1.05 million there are nearly 700,000 registered vehicles here.