The world of personalised number plates is a bewildering affair, drive around any part of the UK and it won’t take long to realise that they are a popular addition to not only the most expensive cars, quite the opposite in fact, they adorn the chassis’ of Vauxhall Nova’s galore too. In fact some people may be put off by the nature of personalised number plates, not wanting to get lumped in with the boy racer aesthetic. The way to avoid this is to spend money, sometimes lots and lots of it. Here’s a little rundown of the top 5 most expensive personalised plates on the UK roads.
5. VIP 1 – £285,000
This belongs to everybody’s favourite Russian oligarch, one Mr. Roman Abramovich. Paying just under £300,000 for a number plate seems highly ridiculous, but when you think that he shelled out £30.8 million for an ageing Andriy Shevchenko in 2006, it really doesn’t seem that much. It certainly says a great deal about how Roman sees himself, he’s not just a very important person, he’s number 1 important person and I’m sure the Chelsea squad agree (they have to!).
4. M1 – £331,500
Mike McCoomb used to own a company called the Mobile Phone Store, and then he didn’t. That’s because he sold it to BT Cellnet for something in the region of £40 million. A heart warming story nonetheless because he purchased this for his son, who’s ten years old. Let’s hope he doesn’t grow up to like motorbikes.
3. 1D – £352,411
Way back in the heady days of 2012, a young Harry Styles was wooed into the clutches of an older lady, 6 months of tabloid media attention and this number plate was all he got out of it. This may not be true (it isn’t). Some really rich guy brought it for his wife’s Bentley. I bet he’s cursing Cowell and co for driving the good abbreviation of ‘1D’ into the ground.
2. S1 – £404,063
Anonymous bidder’s are pretty much standard at auction houses these days, largely due to the fact that they are paying well of the odds for bits of plastic that cost about a fiver to produce in the first place. Props to this guy though, he said he’s be putting it onto an “old red skoda”. If he said Fiat Panda he might just be a new hero of mine.
1. F1 – £440,625
What you do if you own a Mercedes McClaren SLR and you want everyone to know about it? Apart from driving really slowly through expensive parts of London (I’ve seen this happen) you can also stick a very recognisable number/character combo on your car. F1 is just that. I’m surprised that Bernie Ecclestone didn’t want this, but then again he actually owns Formula One.
Guest Post by John Burgess – Car enthusiast and blogger for http://www.plate-trader.com