2 days ago
Death of the personalised numberplate: TV star reveals why once-trendy plates are being sold for 80% less
The trend for personalised number plates has attracted celebrities from showbiz to sport and even royalty - while raking in hundreds of millions a year for the DVLA.
Yet now the market appears to be stalling, with potential buyers slamming the brakes - and existing owners selling theirs off for 80 percentage points less than before.
Public figures have put bespoke imprints on their motors with plates bearing such signifiers as B33 FYS for cricket legend Lord Ian 'Beefy' Botham, 100 VJ for ex-footballer and film star Vinnie Jones and OUT 3N for presenter Denise Van Outen.
The Apprentice presenter Lord Sugar has gone with AMS 1 - that is, Alan Michael Sugar - while the late Queen Elizabeth II drove with an 'A7' plate dating back to 1903.
Heavyweight boxer and self-styled 'Gypsy King' Tyson Fury went for 88 GK, fellow figher Chris Eubank for 1 KO - as posed upon by his son Chris Eubank Jr - as well as TV and music mogul Simon Cowell for S1 MON and Chris Evans for FAB 1.
Meanwhile, Katie Price went for a bright pink car with a plate saying KPII HOT and her daughter Princess for an Audi branded with, well, PRINCESS - while TOWIE celebrity Amy Childs chose AMY 22Y and the late magician Paul Daniels MAGIC.
Personalised numberplates have also lured other former footballers such as Match Of The Day pundit Alan Shearer, with AS 9, and fellow ex-England captain Wayne Rooney, nodding to his nickname as well as favoured shirt number with WAZ 8.
Yet a former reality TV star has now warned that a once-lucrative movement looks like hitting the buffers, with the value of such plates plunging.
James Constantinou, co-founder and CEO owner of nationwide pawnbroker chain Prestige Pawn, has told of a sharp rise in the number of clients keen to cash in on private registration plates.
Mr Constantinou, who came to fame on Channel 4 's Posh Pawn, revealed: 'There has been a huge slump in the value of personalised number plates and customers are rushing to my stores to cash in on them.
'Due to financial pressures, the market is awash with people wanting to sell their plates, which were once deemed the ultimate display of wealth.
'They tended to be the last thing the rich buy and the first to sell - now the owners need to raise money and the private plates are the first thing to go.'
That would suggest a significant turnaround from recent years when values appeared to be soaring - to the benefit of the Driving and Licensing Licensing Agency.
The Mail revealed last October how well financially the government department that issues driving licences and collects road tax was also doing from its other duty of selling personal registrations.
Freedom of Information figures showed how the DVLA made £100.2million in 2012-2013 from a combination of personalised registration sales and auctions, cherished plate transfers and assignment fees.
Information secured by transport policy and research organisation RAC Foundation found the income from this surged to £260.1million in 2022-23.
Some £150.5million of this was from plate sales, which accounted for 58 per cent of the DVLA's personalised registration revenues that year.
DVLA EARNINGS FROM SELLING AND MANAGING PERSONALISED PLATES
YEAR PERSONALISED PLATE SALES CHERISHED TRANSFER ASSIGNMENT FEES TOTAL
2012-13 £57.1m £29.3m £13.8m £100.2m
2013-14 £64.3m £38.9m £16.2m £119.4m
2014-15 £79.6m £41.1m £19.5m £140.2m
2015-16 £96.7m £43.6m £23.6m £163.9m
2016-17 £110.1m £62.8m £28.7m £201.6m
2017-18 £110.6m £67.2m £28.8m £206.6m
2018-19 £112.4m £66.2m £31.1m £209.7m
2019-20 £114.8m £62.6m £31m £208.4m
2020-21 £170.9m £62m £47.6m £280.5m
2021-22 £181m £76.4m £45.5m £302.9m
2022-23 £150.5m £72.4m £37.2m £260.1m
Source: DVLA records obtained by RAC Foundation via FOI request
Boxer Chris Eubank Jr is seen here posing above one of his former heavyweight champion Chris Eubank Sr's cars with the personalised plate '1 KO'
Yet even these latest figures suggested a decline was under way - after earnings from private plate sales and handling had peaked in 2021-22 at £302.9million.
Mr Constantinou has now said: 'Although many personalised plates remain in high demand, they are certainly not a clever investment anymore.
'In the good times early issue numbers particularly with "1" preceding or succeeding limited letters would be in high demand with values commonly between £250 and £500,000.
'But with these buyers now being extremely thin on the ground they are likely to achieve a fraction of these figures - generally values are 20 per cent of the highs seen in the pandemic.'
He described personalised number plates as seeming an 'easy investment' during the Covid pandemic, when 'people had a lot more time on their hands and money which they weren't spending on holidays or activities'.
He added: 'The prices of the plates skyrocketed but now the value are in freefall.'
According to revenue records shared by the DVLA, it has previously earned some £2.09billion from drivers buying and transferring private plates in a decade.
The agency has said all money raised is passed to HM Treasury, with a proportion of the revenue retained by the Department of Transport.
This would seem to be the ideal personalised number plate for a James Bond fan (stock image)
The greats of all time: the top 10 most expensive personalised DVLA plates sold at auction
The DVLA currently has about 60million private plate combinations available on its searchable database, with prices starting from £250 including VAT and an £80 assignment fee.
The agency also hosts several online private registration plate auctions each year.
The DVLA first started selling private number plates in 1989 - and '1 A', changing hands that year for £160,000 still sits in the top 10 priciest sold by the agency.
The most expensive of all is '25 O', which reached £400,000, excluding fees and taxes, on 27 November 27 2014.
Various firms across the country also allow people to buy and sell private and cherished numberplates, with the industry recently valued at more than £2billion.
