NAME: The Used Car.
OR: The super-expensive luxury sports car with only 3,000 kilometres on the clock that nevertheless finds itself on the market because its owner wants something new.
EXAMPLES: 'Pre-adored' models on offer recently at an Italian dealership included a 1994 Alfa Romeo 348 Spider, with 3,200 km on the clock, for $1.38 million and a 1991 Ferrari Testarossa, which had done 3,500 km, for $1.28 million. Elsewhere around town, used-car centres are filled with shiny, nearly new Porsche Turbos and 911s selling for more than $500,000.
IRONIES: (1) Anywhere else in the world the Used Car is just that, an honest auto that has been flogged to death by one or more owners before a dodgy character in an even dodgier jacket waxes it and tries to sell it. Here, the salesman (whose jackets are dodgy but expensive and are usually worn with smart black trousers) has his job done for him. Mr Millionaire plays keeping-up-with-the-Chans and off-loads a procession of almost-new cars to the salesman whose only problem is persuading potential buyers that buying second-hand doesn't mean losing face.
(2) In a place where people make millions on the property market, on stocks and shares, by stiffing business competitors and generally being cut-throat about their approach to money, it's incredible that people should be prepared to throw away so much dosh on these four-wheeled money cash-guzzlers that are never going to appreciate in value.
WHO WINS: Luxury car manufacturers, who play on the prestige buyer's insecurity by churning out new status symbols. The Government, which levies massive tax demands on imported motors.