Selling personal registration plates for cars is big business here in the UK with the DVLA raising many millions of pounds each year by auctioning cherished plates as they are also sometimes referred to. Yes, of course you can buy such number plates for a few hundred pounds but equally the most sought after combinations of letters and numbers can fetch hundreds of thousands of pounds and can often be seen on the front and reverse of expensive, executive cars.
So, let’s have a look at the ten most expensive personal number plates that have been sold in the UK but in reverse order: –
10th – Registration Number “1 O” – Sale Price £210,242
In 2009 this number plate was sold at a Northampton auction for the above price to an anonymous buyer. It would be interesting to get an estimate as to how much such a plate would fetch today as it would appear to be a desirable one as it has so few characters.
9th – Registration Number “K1 NGS” – Sale Price £231,000
This was sold way back in 1993 when even then it went for a considerable sum of money. It would appear to be fit for a car driven by royalty and is believed to have been bought by an Arabian Sultan.
8th – Registration Number “1 RH” – Sale Price £247,000
Back in 2006 this sought after plate achieved an excellent sale price being purchased by Robert Harverson who is a retired businessman.
7th – Registration Number “5I NGH” – Sale Price £254,000
This plate was bought in 2006 by a Sikh gentleman. This is no doubt an extremely desirable plate and ten years later who knows what it might fetch if it were to be auctioned now.
6th – Registration Number “VIP 1” – Sale Price £285,000
If you are a football fan then you will have heard of Roman Abramovich. He is the owner of Chelsea Football Club that play in the Premiership and he is believed to be a Russian multi-billionaire. So, when he purchased the above plate in 2006 it may have been a modest investment on his part.
5th – Registration Number “M 1” – Sale Price £331,500
In 2006, this plate was purchased by a businessman called Mike McComb who sold a mobile phone business for many millions of pounds.
4th – Registration Number “1 D” – Sale Price £352,000
Now you may think this plate was owned by a member of the pop group One Direction but this is not the case. In 2009, the purchaser was a businessman from Lebanon.
3rd – Registration Number “S 1” – Sale Price £404,000
The above plate is thought to be the first one ever registered to someone from Scotland. It was purchased anonymously in 2008 by a person who, apparently, had claimed that he or she was going to put it on their Skoda.
2nd – Registration Number “F 1” –Sale Price £440,000
No, this plate is not owned by Lewis Hamilton, any other Formula 1 racing driver or Bernie Eccleston for that matter. It was purchased in 2008 by a businessman from Bradford in West Yorkshire who has it on his extremely powerful and expensive motor vehicle – a Mercedes-Benz SLR Mclaren.
1st – Registration Number “25 O” –Sale Price £518,000
In 2014, the above cherished number plate was purchased by John Collins who deals in Ferraris. The plate adorns a Ferrari 250 SWB, a beautiful classic sports car, that was once owned by Eric Clapton.
So, as you can see, the £500,000 figure that someone has been prepared to pay for a personal number plate for a car has been exceeded here in the UK. How long will it be before we see a personalized number plate sell for £1 million in this country?
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