It has been revealed that the most expensive private registration plate sold by the DVLA was purchased for £352,000.
The number plate in question was “1 D” – perhaps bought in homage to One Direction, although it was purchased from the DVLA in 2009. As I’m sure you all know, Zayn, Harry, Niall, Louis and Liam didn’t even meet until 2010 – but maybe someone was good at predicting X Factor success.
A freedom of information request by the BBC has uncovered the list of the top ten most expensive plates sold by the DVLA – so this doesn’t include plates changing hands between owners privately, where prices can be much higher. The DVLA in the UK raised £67m from the sale of personalised registrations last year.
However, once purchased from the DVLA, registrations can be sold on to other car owners. “1 D” (the reg, not the pop group – keep up) was apparently bought by a Lebanese businessman as a birthday present for his wife – but of course it may now belong to a die-hard Directioner. One of the registrations in the top ten was bought way back in 1989 for the princely sum of £200,000 – but perhaps “1 A” has now been sold on for a profit?
According to some sources, the most expensive reg – simply “1” – was sold for £7 million in the United Arab Emirates. We found one advertised on ebay for £10million– not sure if anyone will buy it at this price though.
Who has one?
Some examples of celebrities showing off their snazzy registrations:
- Lord Sugar has a private plate reading AMS 1 (his initials!) on his Rolls Royce.
- Kate and Wills had JU5T WED on their car after their nuptials last year. (It wasn’t a real plate though.)
- Katie Price recently had hers changed from KP11 LEO to KP11 HOT after her split with fiancé Leandro Penna.
- Paul Daniels has MAG 1C on his car – very clever!
- Chris Evans has seven different personalised registration plates – all on his prized Ferraris – including FAB and ENZ 40.
Types of Personalised Registration Plate
Registration plates are available in various formats. You can pretty much have whatever you like – if you’re willing to pay for it – as long as it fits one of the following categories:
- Current (how plates have looked since 2001): e.g. AB13 ABC The first two numbers relate to the year.
- Prefix (format of plates between 1983 and 2001): e.g. A123 ABC The first letter denotes the year.
- Suffix (1963-1983): e.g. ABC 123A The last letter denotes the year.
- Dateless (plates before 1963): Any combination of up to four numbers followed by up to three letters, or the other way around. Very popular – and extremely pricey.
You may also be able to get your hands on Irish plates – these can include two or three letters, including I and Z, and up to four numbers.
It’s worth bearing in mind that registration plates which identify the car’s age can only be applied to cars of equal or lower age. Once you have a plate, you can transfer it on to any car you buy subsequently, as long as the car is at least as young as the plate suggests, fully taxed and registered in Great Britain.
£1.8bn has been raised for the treasury by the DVLA since 1989 – through sales at auction and on its website. You can choose from over 30 million registrations on the DVLA website at any given time, or you could wait for one of their auctions (there are a couple every year) and buy one of 1500 special personalised registration plates. Prices on the DVLA website start from £250 – reserve prices at auction may also be as low as this, but expect the bidding to go far higher!
If you are looking for a prestige vehicle to slap a personalised registration on, visit one of our Prestige & Performance showrooms.