Since I have a habit of trawling random eBay auction at odd times of the weekend, I came across a bit of a gem just now - someone is selling one of the Pikachu-branded Volkswagen Beetle, as you may have seen promoting Nintendo and The Pokemon Company's ubiquitous Pokemon at some point in the late '90s or early '00s.

Looks like a number of these were given away at various times - we easily found a pic of a Pokemon 2000 version that was shown at the movie's premiere, and also found a pic in this great CNN article, in which child psychiatrist John Lochridge "...worries that Pokemon's creators and marketers deliberately set out to create a fantasy world so compelling that children would quickly become obsessed. "What seems to be happening is that the kids are brainwashed," he said." Pika? Piiiiiiika!

In any case, this particular "1998 Pokemon Pikachu VW New Beetle" has "trunk modified with tv & game system & speakers", presumably an [EDIT: GameCube, ack, Sunday morning!], and it's revealed: "This car is a lot of fun and attracts a lot of attention. We bought this car from the person who won it from Nintendo. We are selling because we are getting ready to have a baby and need something larger than this car."

Baby in, Pikachu out! It's $3,050.00 so far with 5 days to go. Oh, and if you look carefully in the pic above, the car appears to be dressed up for St Patrick's Day, and is sporting a tiny Irish hat. Classy.