If you’ve ever bought or looked into buying a personalised number plate all of your own, you’ll know that prices can vary from a few hundred pounds to the hundreds of thousands or even more. Which really makes you think: how much are people willing to pay to have the vehicle registration that they desire? Car Buyer Tom looks at the most expensive vehicle registrations ever recorded in the world.
Number 5: World’s Most Expensive Number Plates
“VIP 1”
Paid: £285,000
Buyer: Roman Abramovich, UK,
Year: 2006
The registration of VIP1 was already assigned to a pretty famous car on production. It was originally commissioned to go pride of place of the Pope mobile of none other than Pope John Paul II. He was expected to use the car on a casual visit to Ireland. However in 2006 it was brought by a man who is famous for a very different set of reasons. Chelsea Boss Roman Abramovich purchased this number plate for a very modest sum of £285,000 in 2006. This was an extremely expensive price tag at the time but this legacy was set to be beaten fairly quickly.
Number 4: World’s Most Expensive Number Plates
“M 1”
Paid: £330,000
Buyer: Mike McCoomb, UK
Year: 2006
Mike McCoomb is not such a high profile name. McCoomb made his millions in the year 2000 by selling his mobile phone enterprise to BT Cellnet. Six years after selling the business he brought the “M1” number plate as a gift to his six year old son. Unfortunately his son is still only 14 years old and is still not old enough to use the plates yet. However we can bet he is looking forward to putting them on his first car. We bet it isn’t a Nissan Micra!
Number 3: World’s Most Expensive Number Plates
“F1″
Paid: £440,000
Buyer: Afzal Khan, UK
Year: 2008
Car and alloy designing entrepreneur Afzal Khan overtook Mike McCoombs previous record by buying “F1” for £100,000 more that the previous record. The “F1” number plate was sold for a huge £440,000. This makes it the most expensive number plate to ever be sold in the UK ever on date of writing. The plate is attached to Mr Khan’s Mercedes SLR McLaren. We think it is a rather fitting number plate for the famous car enthusiast.
Number 2: World’s Most Expensive Number Plates
“5”
Price: £3.5million
Buyer: Talal Ali Mohammed Khoury, Abu Dhabi,
Year: 2007
Talal Ali Mohammed Khoury broke the world record for the most expensive plate ever bought. He paid over 25 million Dirhams (£3.5 million) for the number “5” back in 2007. He also brought another numberplate at the same auction for £800,000 reading just the number “55”. When asked by the press he said the numbers had no significance to him at all.
Number 1: World’s Most Expensive Number Plates
“1”
Price: £7million
Buyer: Saeed Abdul Ghaffar Khouri, Abu Dhabi
Year: 2008
It seems fitting that the most expensive number plate in the world is simply the digit, number 1. Saeed Abdul Ghaffer Khouri demolished Talal Khoury’s previous record in 2007 when he bought a number plate bearing the single digit “1” also at auction in Abu Dhabi for double the price as the previous leader.
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