Latest news with #carinvestment
The Sun
14-05-2025
- Automotive
- The Sun
I've made ‘hundreds of thousands' by buying and selling car number plates – here are the best to make easy money
SPINNING PLATES The expert revealed his secret to working out whether a plate will rise or fall in value A MOTORIST has shared how he made "hundreds of thousands" by buying and selling car number plates. Neal Bircher, 60, has collected hundreds of plates worth gargantuan sums and currently has around 350 in the garage at his home in Uxbridge, London, and owns the rights to 220 more. 3 3 3 The DVLA is auctioning 2,000 car number plates in its latest sale - and an expert has revealed the best buys. The latest auctions of personalised registrations starts on Wednesday at 10am. Plates expert Neal has identified which plates to keep your eye on. He says that dateless plates - those with a number at the start or the end - dateless plates with a single letter and shorter plates with common initials are where the money is. For example, Neal believes 910 AM - which has a starting price of £2200 - will attract more interest thanks to the popularity of 'AM' as a set of initials, wheresas 232 XW - also with a starting price of £2200 - won't have as many buyers. In terms of plates less likely to grow, Northern Irish style plates, containing the letters' 'I' and 'Z' are at the lower end of the market. Neal, an IT management consultant and part-time plate dealer, said: "As a general rule, the shorter the better, and also the popularity of initials is a very common factor. "'Dateless plates are always popular and can be good investments. "' '1' plates have proved very good investments, whatever the letters, and so plates such as 1 XDX will be expensive even though 'XDX' is unlikely to be many people's initials. "1 YOB starting at £2400 is an interesting one - reminiscent of 'YOB 1' which famously adorned Slade guitarist Dave Hill's Rolls-Royce in the 1970s! I'm an Irish driving instructor and here's what you have to do in order to apply for a licence "In recent years dateless plates that contain only a single letter have become more sought after - for example 125 B starting at £2500, or 8118 D starting at £2500 in this auction. "And those where the letter is 'O', and hence the plate can look as if it only contain numbers, have really grown in popularity of late. "Hence 54 O starting at £2500 might well fetch the top price in this action. '540' is also a model of BMW." According to Neal, a common misconception is just because a plate might look like it spells a word, it doesn't mean it's valuable. He said: "People sometimes assume that if a plate looks as if it spells a word then it will prove valuable. "That may well be the case if the word is relevant to a business or profession, but if it's just a random word then not necessarily so." "Registration numbers generally tend to grow in value, but the ones less likely to do so are those at the lower end of the market, especially some of the Northern Irish style plates, containing the letters' 'I' and 'Z'. "But there can be exceptions with those as well." Having bought and sold for much of his life, Neal has urged people to be cautious before entering the number plate game. He added: "People who are trying to make money have to be very careful. "It requires a lot of homework if you're looking to invest or make money. "Two very similar-looking plates might have very different values. "AJB would be worth far more than XUY for example because of how common the first set is for initials. "Not everyone is, but some are interested in the backstory behind plates. "There are a lot of people who are in clubs and associations who ask me a lot of questions every day about value and the history of plates. "People are very interested in when it was issued, to know what vehicles it was in, who owned it etc." The DVLA number plate auction The DVLA is auctioning some highly coveted number plates on May 14 The plates range from £300 to over £2000, as drivers clamour to get a unique number for their motor. Bids can only be placed at the auction or through the DVLA website. The plates on sale on May 14 include: CIG 300 Lot 324 Starting price £300 AB16 BUM Lot 18 Starting price £250 MOU 555E Lot 119 Starting price £250 PO25 CHE Lot 1390 Starting price £250 F44 YYE Lot 639 Starting price £200 A96 COX Lot 31 Starting price £200 A600 DAY Lot 35 Starting price £200 CR16 PTO Lot 372 Starting price £250 SAV 146E Lot 1586 Starting price £250 EA69 GLE Lot 509 Starting price £250 OOH 11H Lot 1336 Starting price £300 FAM 1T Lot 583 Starting price £500 145 SAM Lot 1578 Starting price £800 77 JET Lot 840 Starting pricd £1200 36 ANT Lot 116 Starting price £1200 DMZ 1 Lot 457 Starting price £2000 910 AM Lot 92 Starting price £2200 1 YOB Lot 1991 Starting price £2400 1 LTR Lot 1075 Starting price £2400 54 O Lot 1309 Starting price £2500 2025 M Lot 1096 Starting price £2500
The Sun
07-05-2025
- Automotive
- The Sun
Wheeler Dealers star Mike Brewer reveals which ‘modern classic' vehicle will skyrocket 6 times in value in just 10 years
WHEEL DEAL Brewer explains why now is the perfect time to buy Published: 10:46, Updated: 10:46, WHEELER Dealers star Mike Brewer has declared the car he thinks is a 'modern classic'. Brewer said its value could skyrocket over the next few years. 3 Mike Brewer has revealed he thinks the Audi TT Mk1 is a ' modern classic '. Brewer reckons that the TT could shoot up to as much as £10,000. This would be around six times the car's current market price, with motoring experts Parkers saying second-hand models currently go for between £1,130 and £2,205. This is a shadow of the model 's retail price when it was new, of around £27,775. The first-generation TT was made at the turn of the millennium, between 1999 and 2005, before being replaced by the Mk2 a year later. Speaking to the Daily Telegraph, Brewer said: 'Definitely a modern classic is a Mk1 Audi TT. 'The 225bhp model, that's a really good car – a very good modern classic. 'People who have still got those today don't realise they're worth 15 hundred or two grand, maybe two-and-a-half-grand, some of them, but that car will be solid in years to come. "People will be paying 10 grand for those in the future.' The TT packs a sizeable punch for its price, with Parkers believing the four-cylinder, 1781cc engine could reach a top speed of 151mph. Chelsea's £115m ace Moises Caicedo has £160k Audi seized by cops after driving without valid licence near training ground The Mk1 is no slouch off the mark either - going from 0-60 in just 6.4 seconds. The main downside of the sports car is a limited luggage capacity of just 220 litres. Even so, car insurance experts at Hagerty UK have also been keen to heap praise on the Mk1 TT, calling it a "future classic." They said: ' Driving it was one of those rare moments when you realise without a shadow of a doubt you're looking the future right in the eye. 'Subsequent generations were of course faster still, and handled better, but lacked entirely the stunning visual innovation of the original.' Brewer has also suggested that now is a great moment in the markets to snap up forgotten classics, explaining that the market for these has settled after a post- COVID bounce. The TV star explained: 'There has been an oversupply of good classic car stock. "Because during Covid people had money and time, went in their garage and finally finished that Ford Cortina or Triumph Herald they promised they would. 'The market got swamped with good quality classics that bumped prices up because sales were high. "But now the market has gone completely flat and prices are on their way down, dropping 10 to 20 per cent over the past six months and still coming down. "I can see that happening for the next six to eight months. It's a resetting of the market to where it should be. 'So it's absolutely the right time to buy, in some cases a good time to hold your nerve if you're buying. "We've got an unsettled market for a load of reasons: the energy crisis, mortgage rates, now we're going through a change of government.' There's further good news for Audi TT fans, as comments by the manufacturer's CEO, Gernot Döllner, sparked speculation of an electric relaunch of the car. The third generation, petrol, Audi TT was discontinued in 2023. But Döllner said: "I believe Audi should have a sports car, for sure." And when asked if a model like the beloved TT could make a return, he said: "Yes, that's thinkable. But we have a broad view on what's possible. "If you're talking about real racing cars for the track, to me, the only way until now is combustion engine or hybrid. "But if it's more for everyday use on normal roads, I would definitely see a transition to the electric era." 3
