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End of the Road for Cherished Plates
Emile Heskey, your numberplate’s up. From
September 1, a brand-new plate plate
system will send shockwaves through the
huge personalised numberplate market. It
may be able to produce enough new
combinations to last 100 years but unless,
like Liverpool star, your name fits the
restrictive new number/letter combination, it’
s unlikely you’ll be hunting among the new
offerings to find your dream plate.
Personalised plates, or cherished marks as
they’re known in the trade, are huge
business. Prices start in the low hundreds
and escalate to the point where even lottery
winners might think twice. K1 NGS holds the
record, selling in 1993 for £231,000 while
S1 NGH went for £108,000 in 1998.
The biggest player is the Government,
which allowed the Driver Vehicle and
Licensing Agency (DVLA) to start selling
plates 10 years ago and has since become
£500 million richer. Now agency officials are
saying the new system will net even more,
and have bumped up the starting price
from £250 to £499 to help them achieve it.
Trouble is, say the private number plate
dealers, they’re being wildly optimisic: the
new system won’t be nearly as appealing to
the plate hunters.
The biggest problem is the number of
characters. Pre-1963, you could have as few
as two, while the current system upped that
to a minimum of five. But from September,
all new plates will have seven. “The most
desirable plates are the shortest,”
according to Nigel Jackson, managing
director for plate dealer Classic Nouveau.
“The more numbers and letters, the less
cherished, unless the name is very
obvious.”
But that won’t be easy, thanks to the new
letter/number combination. Splitting the
five letters are two numbers, which show the
age of the car. These will be 51 in
September, changing to 02 (for 2002) next
March, then 52, 03 and so on (The DVLA
have kept back 01 to sell later). This
means that, initially, it’ll help if the third
letter in the word you’re trying to spell is S,
which, in the visually skewed world of
cherished marks, is the letter translation of
5. Which is why Emile Heskey scored with
HE51 KEY (which he’s already bought from
the DVLA), and why few else will.
A further barrier to catchy plates is the new
clampdown on spacing and fonts. From
September, anyone cautioned three times
about regrouping the letters or using a
rogue font will be fined £1000 and could
lose the plate. So no more 4s slanted to
make As, or blending a 1 and 2 to make
an R. “The 51 will allow for example MR51
NGH (Mr Singh), but the spacing will have to
be in the right place. Without it it’s not
immediately obvious,” says Jackson.
With its sky-high sales targets, the DVLA
has worked hard to suggest saleable
combinations. One idea is the his ’n’ hers
duel intials plate, made possible by the
double set of letters. Or a birthday gift for
Bob David Smith: UR51 BDS. But the
dealers are unconvinced: “The new plates
will throw up very few distinctive names,
only novelties, which don’t really fetch the
higher prices,” says Jackson. They can be
amusing though. One of the biggest
dealers, Regtransfers, has AR51 COW on
its books.
What the new system will do is boost the
value of the current and old-style plates.
According to Graham Edmundson, senior
partner of NE Numbers:
“Demand will be higher for the original
system. The new version will be seen as
more of a Euro-style. I don’t think the
public will embrace it.
There’ll be one or two good ones, though.”
Such as AR51 NAL (Arsenal), on Regtransfer’
s books for around £7000. Or MU51 CDJ
(Music DJ), on sale at the DVLA.
But none will have the all-important instant
recognition factor, which mainly comes from
having fewer characters. The effect of, say,
SW1 (on sale from NE Numbers for
£125,000) would be far stronger, whether
you’ve got an S in your name or not.
September 1, a brand-new plate plate
system will send shockwaves through the
huge personalised numberplate market. It
may be able to produce enough new
combinations to last 100 years but unless,
like Liverpool star, your name fits the
restrictive new number/letter combination, it’
s unlikely you’ll be hunting among the new
offerings to find your dream plate.
Personalised plates, or cherished marks as
they’re known in the trade, are huge
business. Prices start in the low hundreds
and escalate to the point where even lottery
winners might think twice. K1 NGS holds the
record, selling in 1993 for £231,000 while
S1 NGH went for £108,000 in 1998.
The biggest player is the Government,
which allowed the Driver Vehicle and
Licensing Agency (DVLA) to start selling
plates 10 years ago and has since become
£500 million richer. Now agency officials are
saying the new system will net even more,
and have bumped up the starting price
from £250 to £499 to help them achieve it.
Trouble is, say the private number plate
dealers, they’re being wildly optimisic: the
new system won’t be nearly as appealing to
the plate hunters.
The biggest problem is the number of
characters. Pre-1963, you could have as few
as two, while the current system upped that
to a minimum of five. But from September,
all new plates will have seven. “The most
desirable plates are the shortest,”
according to Nigel Jackson, managing
director for plate dealer Classic Nouveau.
“The more numbers and letters, the less
cherished, unless the name is very
obvious.”
But that won’t be easy, thanks to the new
letter/number combination. Splitting the
five letters are two numbers, which show the
age of the car. These will be 51 in
September, changing to 02 (for 2002) next
March, then 52, 03 and so on (The DVLA
have kept back 01 to sell later). This
means that, initially, it’ll help if the third
letter in the word you’re trying to spell is S,
which, in the visually skewed world of
cherished marks, is the letter translation of
5. Which is why Emile Heskey scored with
HE51 KEY (which he’s already bought from
the DVLA), and why few else will.
A further barrier to catchy plates is the new
clampdown on spacing and fonts. From
September, anyone cautioned three times
about regrouping the letters or using a
rogue font will be fined £1000 and could
lose the plate. So no more 4s slanted to
make As, or blending a 1 and 2 to make
an R. “The 51 will allow for example MR51
NGH (Mr Singh), but the spacing will have to
be in the right place. Without it it’s not
immediately obvious,” says Jackson.
With its sky-high sales targets, the DVLA
has worked hard to suggest saleable
combinations. One idea is the his ’n’ hers
duel intials plate, made possible by the
double set of letters. Or a birthday gift for
Bob David Smith: UR51 BDS. But the
dealers are unconvinced: “The new plates
will throw up very few distinctive names,
only novelties, which don’t really fetch the
higher prices,” says Jackson. They can be
amusing though. One of the biggest
dealers, Regtransfers, has AR51 COW on
its books.
What the new system will do is boost the
value of the current and old-style plates.
According to Graham Edmundson, senior
partner of NE Numbers:
“Demand will be higher for the original
system. The new version will be seen as
more of a Euro-style. I don’t think the
public will embrace it.
There’ll be one or two good ones, though.”
Such as AR51 NAL (Arsenal), on Regtransfer’
s books for around £7000. Or MU51 CDJ
(Music DJ), on sale at the DVLA.
But none will have the all-important instant
recognition factor, which mainly comes from
having fewer characters. The effect of, say,
SW1 (on sale from NE Numbers for
£125,000) would be far stronger, whether
you’ve got an S in your name or not.