So what does it take to get to be number one? For athletes it means a lifetime of disciplined training, for a car company it can mean decades of thorough and consistent work, but in the recently wealthy car crazed tuner scene of the UAE, it’ll run you a little more than $14 Million. Saeed Abdul Ghafour Khouri recently shelled out 52.2 dirham, the equivalent of $14,300,000 at an auction at the 7-Star Emirates Palace Hotel in Dubai. Don’t feel bad about the money; it’s going to charity that helps accident victims.

When Saeed laid down all that dirham he was buying more than just a metal rectangle with a coat of paint on the front, he is buying a place in society. The oil-rich nations of the Persian Gulf are developing a form of car culture that makes Paris Hilton’s car collection look amateur. All these new funds have made the citizens of Abu Dhabi crazy for custom super cars. If you can imagine what it costs to have a set of rims mounted on your lowly Acura Integra, imagine the cost of milling a custom set of alloys and then mounting them on your Black Series. The UAE’s tuning scene has developed in such a way, that only a handful of these super-tuned machines could stand up to any group of big money collector cars from around the rest of the globe. The Middle East has become a place where your super car is nothing, unless its gold plated or modified to a point that would mean bankruptcy for most.

In this new status-seeking environment it is not uncommon to see a automobile wearing a number plate that is many times more expensive than the car itself. So after all, is Saeed that crazy for spending so much for the right to be first? However this can also be seen as a wise investment, because someone will always want to be number 1.

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