The ‘F1’ number plate currently owned by Afzal Kahn, owner of a customised car design company Kahn Design, is up for sale on a website which deals in registered number plates RegTranfers, at GBP 14,412,093 or Rs 132.36 crore.
The century-old number plate was earlier owned by the Essex City Council since 1904 before being bought by Kahn in 2008 for GBP 440,000 (approx. Rs 4 crore).
Since then the number plate has been on a number of luxury cars which include Mercedes-McLaren SLR, custom Range Rovers and most notably, a Bugatti Veyron.
Kahn owns a prestigious collection of number plates including 4 HRH which was in tandem with the Queen’s Royal Jubilee celebration, 4K, 0 800, 00 77, 4 AK and WED 11N to name but a few.
The obvious reference to the number plate to the thrilling motorsport makes it one of the most sought-after number plates in the world. Moreover, the rarity of a two digit number plate makes it more valuable.
If the deal is realised, the number plate will be the most expensive placing it ahead of ‘D5’ plate sold in Dubai. This number plate was bought by an Indian Balwinder Sahani for a whopping Rs 67 crore.
Another number plate in Abu Dhabi, ‘1’, was sold for Rs 66 crore in 2008.
These prices are for customised number plates offered by transport authorities in the respective countries. In India, unfortunately, such a system does not exist.
Anyway, if you wish to have a certain degree of exclusivity, each Regional Transport Office (RTO) publishes advertisements from time to time to auction number plates which starts from 0001 or other most sought-after combinations, such as 8055 (can be written as BOSS in some typefaces) or 0007. Some also facilitate e-auctioning for the same.
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