New Delhi: The trend of taking fancy numbers for cars is going out of hand. Haryana has created a new record after a VIP car number was sold for Rs 1.17 crore in an online auction. The registration number HR88B8888 became the costliest in India. The bidding happened on the government’s official fancy number portal, and the final round ended at 5 pm on Wednesday. A total of 45 people took part in the auction, NDTV reported.

The base price for this number was only Rs 50,000, but the bids increased very fast. By noon, the amount had already crossed Rs 88 lakh, and by evening, it reached the final price of Rs 1.17 crore. Earlier in April, Kerala’s tech billionaire Venu Gopalakrishnan had bought a special number for his Lamborghini Urus Performante. The plate, KL 07 DG 0007, cost him Rs 45.99 lakh. That bidding had started at Rs 25,000 but quickly jumped to the final amount.

This number plate is popular because of how it looks. When written in capital letters, the alphabet ‘B’ looks similar to the number 8. Because of this, the entire sequence appears like a long chain of eighths. Many people consider the number 8 to be lucky and linked with wealth, which added to the excitement during bidding.

This number isn’t exceptionally rare; we’ve seen far better combinations in past auctions. But what makes it attractive is its structure and how neatly the digits align.”

HR – Haryana state code

88 – RTO code

B – Series code

8888 – Four-digit number

Since most digits are 8 and also the alphabet between them is B, which also blends well, it attracted high demand.

Haryana holds online auctions for VIP or fancy numbers every week. Applications open on Friday at 5 pm and close on Monday at 9 am. After that, bidding continues until Wednesday, and results are declared at 5 pm. Just last week, the number HR22W2222 was sold for Rs 37.91 lakh, but this record has now been broken by HR88B8888.