6O sells for £100k

24-year-old Ghanim al-Hadaifi bought the registration 6 O during the final day of DVLA Personalised Registrations' Christmas auction at Tankersley Manor Hotel, near Barnsley.

This purchase takes his total spend for the year to more than £246,000 on just three number plates and yet he claims his number plate collection is still not complete.

Mr al-Hadaifi is a member of the Qatar diplomatic family living in London and he bought 4 O at the DVLA summer auction for £63,000 and 5 O at the agency's autumn event for £83,000, the latter of which was a gift for the Qatari ruling family.

Mr al-Hadaifis spokesman said: "Money is not really an issue, he just wants the best registrations he can have for his cars. Even though he has bought 4 O and 6 O for himself, he already has his sights set on numerous others which we hope will be auctioned next year."

DVLA Personalised Registrations released the O-series to commemorate it's 20th anniversary. Each of its six auctions throughout the year has featured one of the plates in its catalog staring with 1 O in January. In total, 1 O, 2 O, 3 O, 4 O, 5 O and now 6 O have raised £666,560 with all the money raised going to the Treasury.

"The O-series has been a phenomenally success for us. Clearly Mr al-Hadaifi has the bug to buy the best plates he can. What is extremely pleasing is that he always makes the effort to come along to the auction in person and raises the atmosphere to a whole new level" said Damian Lawson, DVLA Personalised Registrations' Marketing Manager.

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DVLA '10' first day sales

DVLA Personalised Registrations' made £2 million from its first day sale of its 10-series registrations.

Senior staff at the Agency were stunned by the response on December 1. Incredibly, 2,329 registrations totalling £1.2 million were sold within the first hour of the sale going live at 8.30am.

The rush occurred as fans of private registrations clambered to buy the new series which can only be assigned to vehicles from March 1st, 2010.

"While we knew there was interest surrounding the new 10 series, we never expected the level of response we received on day one. We have all been left quite stunned." Said Damian Lawson, DVLA Personalised Registrations' Marketing Manager.

DVLA Personalised Registrations has sold more than 2.5 million number plates in it's 20 years of life and has more than 800,000 visits every month.

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2 B(i)G 2 FAIL

This number plate belongs to the Morgan Stanley Vice-Chairman, Rob Kindler and I bet he's genuinely surprised every time his car gets vandalised....

Nice.

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DVLA Ban More Plates

The DVLA withdrew two number plates from their latest auction (3/12/2009) for fear they may cause offence.

The registration 1 NLA was removed because it could be made to read 'INLA' which is the acronym for the outlawed Irish National Liberation Army that assassinated Conservative MP Airey Neave with a car bomb at the House of Commons in 1979.

The sale would have contravened a long-standing ban on plates associated with terrorists and could have outraged the families of the people killed by the paramilitary group during the Troubles in Northern Ireland .

PAK 11N was pulled because it could be made to read 'PAKI IN' which includes term of abuse often directed at immigrants from the South Asian Islamic Republic.







A senior DVLA executive said "human error" was to blame for the registrations slipping through the net.

1 NLA was due to be auctioned with a reserve price of £3,200 on the second day of the three-day sale of 1,500 numbers expected to raise a total in the region of £2 million.

But previous experience suggests that the final bid may have been higher. It would almost certainly have raised a five-figure sum at the auction at Tankersley Manor, Barnsley, South Yorks.

PAK 11N was due to be auctioned on Friday and had a reserve of £400. Both number plates had been passed for sale by a DVLA internal standards committee that considers each registration prior to sale.

The withdrawals come just two months after the DVLA was forced to remove from sale two homophobic plates - F4 GOT and D1 KES - from its last auction following a complaint from gay rights charity Stonewall. Click Here! For more information

Its 'proprietary steering group' is in place to sensor number plates that could be altered to spell out potentially offensive words .

"Missing the potential significance of these particular marks was human error. They have been removed as a precaution in case they cause offence,"

"More attention is being paid by the steering group for future sales. Out of the thousands of marks we sell, one or two may slip through the net.

"Some people may see a registration as offensive. Some people may not. We have to be very, very careful now." said Damian Lawson, DVLA Personalised Registrations marketing manager.

Since 1989 when the cherished numbers scheme was first launched, three million personalised plates have been sold raising £1.3 billion. Sales are now estimated to generate between 4 and 5 million pounds a month.

The first DVLA auction was held at Christies in London where 74 registrations went up for sale including 1A for £160,000, 1 T (£56,000) and MUS 1C (£65,000) and more than 120 auctions have been held since.

The record sales price for a registration plate at a DVLA auction is £440,625 (£375,000 plus VAT) bought by Mr. Afzal Khan in January, 2008. Click Here To see BBC News Report

The DVLA list of banned registrations includes 054 MA, HE58 OLA and BU58 OMB plus all plates beginning with JE and ending HAD.

The Agency has been accused of being a spoil sport for banning the sale of much less offensive sequences like 59 ANK, 59 ERM, BO10 CKS and P10 NKA but I think in the future we may well see these plates either returned to availability or put under the hammer.

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