2010 Car Number Plates

We’re now just over a month away from the introduction of the 2010 number plate on all new cars hitting the road after the beginning of March.

While the excitement surrounding the introduction of new number plates may go over some people’s heads, during the past few years a real demand has grown for personalised plates, with some selling for an absolute fortune at auction.

Music legend Elton John’s former number plate ELT 70N recently went up for auction for just under £1,000, but that’s nothing compared to the £113,815 one crazy person (in the nicest sense) shelled out on a 1 HRH number plate auctioned by the DVLA at the beginning of 2009. And even that has some way to go to surpass £254,000 paid to take ownership of the 51 NGH plate.

Eric Morecambes Cherished Number Rescued!

Eric Morecambe’s 1971 Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow has been spared from the scrapheap at the last minute.

Peter Yates, who runs a wedding car firm in Morecambe, spotted the car in a Shrewsbury junkyard just 24 hours before it was due to be dismantled.

He said finding the car – which had the number plate EM100 when Morecambe owned it – was a ‘miracle’.

The car was owned by the comic from 1971 and 1974 – as shown by the original order note – and Yates says it still smells of cigar smoke.

How the car came to be in a scrapheap is unknown. Seven years ago the car, including the personalised number plate, sold for £36,000 at auction.

The UK’s most expensive number plate to date is the F1 registration number purchased by a British businessman for £440,625 in 2008, though that’s just small change compared to the £7m spent by Abu Dhabi-based Saeed Khouri on the 1 number plate – officially the largest sum of money ever spent on a registration number.

Located in the heart of East Yorkshire, Image Registrations offer a fast, friendly and efficient service for buying and selling cherished vehicle registration numbers. Our team of trained staff will professionally handle your transfer as swiftly as possible, with some transfers taking just 24 hours from receipt of documentation. We offer advice without technical 'jargon', and are always competitive on price. Our valuations department can give you an accurate market value on your registration number by post or by e-mail. Del Stanley
As well as having an internet presence, we also regularly advertise in many of the 'National' publications where we offer a selection of registrations owned by us for sale.

The Motor Car Act 1903, which came into force on 1 January 1904, required all motor vehicles to be entered on an official vehicle register, and to carry number plates. The Act was passed in order that vehicles could be easily traced in the event of an accident or contravention of the law. Vehicle registration number plates in the UK are rectangular or square in shape, with the exact permitted dimensions of the plate and its lettering set down in law.