A system with good intentions resulted in the lost of a close friend.

The Certificate of Entitlement (COE), instituted by the government of Singapore since May 1990, is a program designed to limit car ownership, and hence, the number of vehicles on the country's roads. This system, in effect, requires residents of Singapore to bid for the right to buy a motor vehicle, with the number of certificates deliberately restricted.

The COE allows holders to own a car for a period of 10 years, after which they must either scrap or export their car with financial incentives, or bid for another COE at the prevailing rate then if they wish to continue using their car for a further 5 or 10 years.

The COE system discourages car owners from keeping old, but high quality cars with expired COEs after 10 years. This is due to the high cost of a new COE and the financial incentives for scrapping or exporting a car with an expired COE. As a result, Singapore roads are overwhelmingly populated by models under 10 years old, and this causes the nation to have a very low population of classic cars that are valuable from a historic, design or engineering standpoint, compared to the high proportion of culturally insignificant economy cars.