The craze to buy personalized products has always been on the rise and number plates count as one of the most sought after personalized car accessory has always been the registration plates. Consumers often view their cars as an extension of their personality and therefore, owning number plates which is universally relevant or relevant to their personal or professional life has always been a gamer. Personalized number plates hold great significance with the UK motorists and they generally perceive it as one of the most important fashion accessories of their cars. Thus, in the recent times, the price of the interesting and the cherished number plates has sky rocketed and according to the statistics shared by DVLA, in the last 25 years over £2 billion has been raised in tax revenue against the number plate auctions across UK.
The worth of a number plate increases with fewer digits and their relevancy. Below is a list of the ten most expensive registrations, lowest to highest ever recorded in the history of UK Motoring industry.
- 1 O
The DVLA sold this plate for £170000 in 2009 and it was purchased by an unknown bidder over the phone at an auction held in Northamptonshire, UK. The details of who owns the car with this number plate or which model of car has it been assigned is not known.
- K1 NGS
An Arab Sultan had supposedly bought this number plate in 1995 by paying a whopping £231000. The auction held for this number plate was heard to be a memorable one with a tedious battle between the bidders ending in a splitting applause. One of the most expensive registrations of the UK now is tagged with a Bentley, manufactured in 1995.
- 1 R H
The English Business magnate Robert Harverson from Surrey, UK paid thirty times more than the projected cost of this number plate because it contained his initials. The DVLA sold 1 R H to Harverson for £247000 in 2006. Harverson was especially known for his penchant towards collecting expensive registrations and this number plate added to his collection of 10 private number plates. 1 R H is now address to a 2013 manufactured Mercedes Benz SL 63 AMG Auto convertible in black.
- 51 N G H
51 N G H spells close to the popular Indian Sikh name called ‘Singh’. This number plate was sold by DVLA in 2006 to an unknown bidder at an auction in the UK. An interesting observation about these particular expensive registrations is that it fetched DVLA more than two and a half times than another private plate S 1 N G H which is surprisingly closer to the name ‘Singh’. This number plate was last seen on a Rolls Royce Phantom Drophead in a music video by the Indian – Punjabi singer and lyricist Jazzy B in 2008.
- V I P 1
The Russian billionaire and Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich purchased this number plate from DVLA for £285000. Pope John Paul II had once used this number plate on the Pope Mobile during his visit to Ireland in 1979. This number plate was tagged with Abramovich’s 1993 manufactured Rolls Royce Corniche IV Convertible in blue.
- M 1
The mobile phone business magnate Mike McCoomb bought M 1 in 2006 for £331000 as a birthday gift for his ten year old son. This plate was sold by Britain’s one of the most famous Art auctioneers Bonhams at the Goodwood festival of speed in order to raise funds for the Tatton Park Charitable Trust. M 1 has a longer history. This 100 years old expensive registrations was originally issued in Cheshire in 1902 for a Mercedes Benz at Tatton Park.
- 1 D
The DVLA auction at Warwick sold this plate in 2009 to the London based Lebanese property developer Nabil Bishara who purchased such expensive registrations at £352000 to gift his wife for her Bentley. This number plate should have been ideal for the boys of the famous UK boy band One Direction however none of the young members demonstrated interest to bid for 1 D.
- S 1
Bonhams sold this plate to an unknown bidder for £404000 in 2008. S 1 is known to be the first number plate of Scotland and dates back to 1903. It’s first owner was John H A MacDonald, the lord Justice Clerk of Scotland. Since then, this number plate had been in the family until in 2008, Bonham Auction House auctioned it at the Goodwood Revival Sale.
- F 1
This number plate was sold to the British Automotive designer Afzal Khan for £440000 in 2008. F 1 held the record for being the most expensive number plate until recently. It was reported that Khan was offered a whooping GBP 6 million for F 1 which he, most graciously, turned down. Khan initially placed this number plate on his Mc Laren Mercedes SLR and this second most expensive registrations of the world now adorns his Bugatti Veyron.
- 25 O
25 O is the most expensive registrations of the world and ever sold by DVLA. This number plate was bought by a car collector and owner of a Ferrari dealership named Talacrest, John Collins for a neat £518000 in 2014. Collins uses this registration plate on some of the most desirable cars of his collection such as the 250 GT SWB Ferrari worth £10 Million (which has previously belonged to English singer and songwriter Eric Clapton), the Ferrari 250 TR worth £20 Million and the Ferrari 250 GTO worth £35 Million. The presale bidding began at £50000 however within moments it reached £250000 with the hammers finally going down at £400000. After adding the buyer’s premium and VAT, the final price stood at £518480.
The auction for 25 O was coincidentally conducted in 2014 on the 25th Anniversary year of DVLA marking their 150th successful auction.
