Fast Cars

A good story about car games and car inflation.

When Pete and I were kids, we played a game with our friends the Goodmans whenever we were in the car. We'd keep our eyes peeled for certain cars, and if we were the first to spot one we'd get points -- the value of each make/model depended on its rarity. The breakdown was something like this:

VW Bug (the original): 1pt
Corvette: 5pts
Cadillac (excluding Cimarrons): 5pts
BMW: 5pts
Mercedes: 5pts
Limo: 10pts
Porsche: 25pts
Jaguar: 25pts
Ferrari: 50pts
Lamborghini: 50pts
Bentley: 100pts
Rolls Royce: 100pts

We'd play until we got to wherever we were going, and the kid with the highest score won that round (although sometimes we kept a running tally all day.)

I was thinking about this as I drove home recently, realizing that if I tried to play now I'd be well into the hundreds by the time I got home. If Lexus and Infiniti were included in the game (I don't remember if they were) I might hit a thousand.

Maybe it's just because of the towns I'm driving through, upscale berg after upscale berg, but there seems to be a proliferation of high-end automobiles. I pass dozens of Mercedes, scads of BMWs, armies of Lexi. I even see a Rolls Royce on a regular basis (same one, lives somewhere along Sheridan Road.) Does everyone just spend more on cars these days, or are the cars less expensive? I'm thinking it's a combination of both.

But boy, how boring for today's kids. I'd imagine the point scale has changed, with BMWs and Mercedes valued at only 5 points while Corvettes are up to 10 and Beetles are now worth what Porsches once were. After all, how often do you see a Punch Bug driving around these days?