I had the transparent purple one too, and then a few years later (or some timespan away), for Christmas, I got a yellow Gameboy Color (and Pokémon Yellow? Or did I already have that?) and a link cable so my brother and I could play Pokémon together instead of fighting over it, haha.
I know you're all jealous. Even though at the time the GBC was outdated and the GBA was already out, I had an amazing Pokemon styled GBC. It had Pikachu on it, the light to show the battery power left was a Pokeball! It came with an awesome case with Blastoise on it as well. The only downside to it is that it's battery cover had to be taped on. I loved it so much. Played it so much I did nearly nothing else. Pokemon was my favorite game so I really loved this thing. Here's a picture (not of mine mine is more beat up but still good condition)
My cousins had GameBoy Colors, so after seeing them my brother and I wanted one as well. So we pooled out money and bought a clear purple GBC. Our first game was R-Type DX, and after that we got Pokemon Blue. The GameBoy Color was my first handheld but not my first system of any type.
R-Type is a shoot-em-up...the only racer with rumble that I can think of is Star Wars Ep1 Racer, although I'm sure there were plenty more.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4kl6_mGU_8 (Might need to turn your vol down... the vid is loud) That's R-Type. The DX version had I think 4 or 5 R-Type games (I think some were remakes or colored).
My Game Boy Color was totally pimped out. I had a big bulky battery pak. A screen magnifier (this was so stupid). A screen light. A louder speaker attachment. And a rumble pak (I think it reacted to bass or something. Chiptuned bass). Playing while charging and with a funky game like Pokemon Pinball that was larger than most... and this thing was a monster to hold.