World Record for "Distinguished Number Plates"

Further to the last post about the Abu Dhabi sale of the number 1...

The world record for the highest price ever paid for a car registration was comprehensively obliterated by the auction result. The successful bidder, a Mr Saeed Abdul Ghaffar Khouri, paid over £7 million, thus doubling the previous world record price paid at an Emirates Auction sale last year.

Regtransfers.co.uk congratulates Emirates Auctions on achieving their second world record in a remarkably short time.

Emirates Auctions MD Abdulla Matar Al Mannaei said that 100 percent of the plates put up for auction were snapped up by buyers – a rare feat for any auction, where a sell rate of 95 percent is standard.

What makes us all the more enthusiastic about the spectacular results achieved by Mr Al Mannaei and his company is the range of good causes that benefit from the proceeds of the sales.

The five previous auctions raised £28 million from the sale of 393 plates, which went towards the support of special needs projects and victims of road accidents. Proceeds from this most recent auction will go towards building a national rehabilitation centre for traffic accident victims -- the first of its kind in the UAE. It will be run along the lines of the most advanced rehabilitation centers in the world and will provide physiotherapy, and other medical, psychological, social, occupational and recreational support.

Yet ANOTHER Number Plates Record

Yup, it's the weekend of the greatly anticipated auction in Abu Dhabi where the number "1" is expected to sell for several millions of pounds. At the last of these grand events, the car registration "5" was sold for £3.5 million, so it is no great surprise that Guinness World Records will be in attendance in anticipation of more material for their famous book!

Emirates Auctions, the organizers of the sale, are optimistic that the event will be the most spectacular private number plates sale held anywhere in the world so far. Certainly, some of those attending are amongst the wealthiest people in the region, and the opulent surroundings are certainly conducive to extravagant spending.

We'll update you on the outcome after we speak to our friends at Emirates Auctions after the sale.

Valentines Plates.

You really are leaving it late getting that special present. Not necessarily too late though.

If you want to get your hubby, wife or lover a really special, unique gift then why not consider a personal number plate. "Personal" is the important word here. This is a gift that shows how much thought and effort you put into thinking the idea up, and choosing the right registration...

Just give our advisors a call on 01582 477333 and see if we can help you earn those brownie points for the coming year.

Er... of course you could just make do with a box of chocolates or another cartoon tie. *Sigh*...

US Private Number Plates Threatened... Briefly

For those of you who don't subscribe to our Regwise number plates newsletter we thought we'd share a ludicrous little story we saw a while ago.

You may recall a bit of a buzz about number plates censorship in the UK last year. Well, the subject came up again last month, when DVLA got the jitters about plates bearing the character ccombinations 08 WMS and 08 RON. Apparently, if you ignore the zero, and treat the 8 as a letter B, these resemble the Welsh words for "bums" and "breast". Shocking, eh? [rolls eyes and yawns]

Well, DMV officials in the USA have a similar bowdlerist aspect to their personalities, and they also feel compelled to sanitise the content of licence plates - just in case someone should be so shocked and offended that they go mad and turn to communism or give up hamburgers or something...

The Department of Motor Vehicles in South Dakota was so stressed by this huge responsibility that it actually asked the state legislature to ban private number plates - or "vanity plates" as Americans call them. To their great disappointment the suggestion was thrown out by a committee of less sensitive souls. So, South Dakota gets to keep its private plates and the DMV gets to keep acting as censor and thus protecting people from corruption by exposure to the dreadful moral hazard of car number plates.