China's lucky numbers.

• Position: CARS - Brief article

Achieving China's new middle-class dream means owning a car. But the car is not always enough: A license plate with lucky numbers has become almost as much of a status symbol as the vehicle itself. In Chinese culture, the luckiest number is 8; the unluckiest is 4. Many people were resorting to bribery to obtain lucky numbers, so officials in southern China decided to put plates up for public auction. In Guangzhou last July, plate AC6688 fetched $10,000; one young man snagged APY888 for...