Cars are not rational. They never have been, and they never will be, at least I hope not. The day cars become really rational is the day that I make my attempt to take over the Washington Monument with a fleet of irrational cars, making it my Obelisk of Obstreperousness and issuing a series of more and more unhinged demands until the authorities lure me out with some manner of hoagie and capture me in a dog kennel or something.
But until then, we can rest assured that the World of Cars is one of powerful irrationality and glorious nonsense, with everyone driving cars with capabilities far beyond what they could ever use and loving every minute of it. And yet, even in this incredibly irrational world, the way that the British sorta-personalized number plate market works remains a towering monument to madness.
Are you familiar with how the UK personalized plate market works? Oh, it’s bonkers. And why it’s bonkers requires a bit of explanation about UK number plates.
“Number Plates” are what we in the US call “license plates” or “license tags” because like all things, the British just prefer words with “u”s in them. It’s not a bad term, as it’s pretty much what it says on the tin: a plate, with numbers on it. And those numbers have meanings. Here’s what current UK plate numbers (and letters, the digits of words) actually mean:
By the way, the name for the official UK number plate font is Charles Wright (there’s a newer version called Mandatory, too), and that seems to be named for the company used to stamp vehicle number plates.
Okay, that makes sense! In fact, I’d even say it’s rational. Really, really rational! So rational you’re probably wondering what the hell I’m going on about here. Well, the crucial element is that the UK does not offer personalized or vanity number plates, and yet some quirk or failing of the human mind means that people want them.
So what can a healthy, red-blooded Briton do to satiate their desire for a personalized license plate, the sort that we take for granted here in the US, where we just kick a few extra bucks to the DMV so we can let the world know that we’re DWN2CLWN or LV2WANK or whatever.
The UK will not let you just pick some series of letters and numbers for your own personalized plate. But, there is a loophole, of sorts: UK number plates exist independently of their cars, and can be transferred from one car to another. This means that a particular license plate can be held “on retention” by paying a fee to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA). Because this is possible, that means that particular license plates can be transferred from one car to another, and plates with “desirable” number and letter combinations can be “sold” for shockingly large amounts of money.
So, what makes some combinations of numbers and letters desirable? Well, earlier UK number plate formats had fewer letters and numbers, with some really old or specialized ones having very few letters and numbers indeed, allowing for a small number of two-digit plates, including one that was just “F1.”
As you can imagine, for many people, having a number plate that said “F1” would be really appealing, so much so that the person who currently owns that plate, Afzal Kahn, an automotive designer, spent over half a million pounds to buy the registration and turned down an offer of $12.5 million in 2018.
For a number plate. This is what I mean when I talk about this whole mess being irrational.
So, let’s say you have more pounds than sense and really, really want a vanity number plate for your Austin Allegro? How do you go about finding one? Well, there are brokers of number plates, companies that have big inventories of plates held on retention, and they have websites that let you enter what you want, and then they search for close matches.
Like, let’s say I want an AUTOPIAN plate. What can I find?
Those aren’t all that great, mostly just getting me the AUT part of the name, but I guess if I had a BMW M4 or M5 there’s some options there? I don’t, though. And look at the prices of these things: M4 AUT is £1,244! That’s like $1,600! I’ve bought multiple cars for less than that!
What if we try something easier, like, what if I want to get our Editor-In-Chaps David Tracy a personalized plate in case he ever moves to the UK and wants to register a rusty jeep? What can we find with his initials?
Holy crap, £4,196 for 100 DNT? Or £3,345 for DNT 812, which it pretty good, but may be too risqué for David unless I convince him that the 812 just means he ate, um, one slice of pizza, too.
Still, this is ridiculous, especially from an American perspective, where David could have a plate with his initials and some other crap for, like, $50/year or something.
But, again, the difficulty and expense are why personal number plates have become such A Thing in the UK. One of the biggest companies that does this, Regtransfers.co.uk, even has a freaking magazine about number plate registration transfers.
This is all stunning to me. Look at their cover models/plates, for example. Theo Paphitis, a wildly successful and wealthy retail magnate, wanted his name on a plate, and the closest he could get is TIHEO. Sure, that’s pretty close, but if someone made Theo a desk plaque and spelled his name Tiheo, I bet he’d politely ask for them to try again, and maybe might ask his valet to slap them around a little.
But in the UK number plate world? This is magazine-cover worthy!
Let’s consider some other number plates people may want:
Let’s think about some traditional, even stereotypical British number plate ideas. You know how we always like to talk about British people calling you “guv’nor” in that likely offensive stereotypical way? Well, if you want a “governor”-themed number plate, you’ll be dropping almost £100,000 for THE 60V!
Hell, what if you’re the king. What if King Charles wants a custom plate for his specially imported Trans Am? The best I could find he could get is HRH 2, at £125,000. That “2” is a real kick in the royal junk.
What if you want a James Bond-themed one? X007 YES is the best I saw, for £3,325. If you have a cool old Triumph TR7? The perfect TR7 plate exists, for way, way more than that car is worth at £105,000. And what if you want to celebrate the British breakfast delicacy of beans on toast? The best I could find was BEA 11S, for £4,695.
Honestly, it’s all kind of brilliant. By not offering vanity plates, they’ve managed to create a whole strange thriving industry, complete with its own magazine and trading market and speculators, and big, big money. It’s incredible and silly and wonderful all at once, and it makes me wonder what transplants from the UK to America think about our cheap and plentiful vanity plates.
They must think we’re fools.
From 1973 to 2001, people would wait until 1 August every year to buy new vehicles as to brag the latest single letter, denoting the year of registration. That caused lot of headache for the British manufacturers who shut down the production during the summer break. Some manufacturers would “surge” the productions of certain models in June and July as to stock up enough vehicles to meet the demand. That had been revised ever since.
In Germany, we can only pick out one to two letters and one to four numbers following the one to three letters for city, county, or district. The exceptions are HH, NS, 88 (you do know why) as well as umlauted letters. You can pick M – A 1 if you are willing to pay more as well as shortened number plates.
“if someone made Theo a desk plaque”
Do people still have desk plaques? I mean, like, what is really their purpose. You go into someone’s office and sit on the opposite side of the desk from them, so it would be presumed that you would ALREADY KNOW THEIR NAME?!!
Would be fun to be able to post pics here.
Here goes nothing…
Due to their license plates displaying the cars age, a lot of people in the UK will wait for the new plate to come out, so that they can brag about their car being brand-new for longer. Meanwhile, others will buy a cheap personalized plate with no meaning, just to hide the age of their car. When I lived there, my E60 BME 525d (6-speed manual) had one of those plates- LNZ 6516. The owner after me exported it to Bulgaria if I remember correctly, so who knows if that plate has been transferred to another car or not.
Isn’t that just a normal Northern Irish plate?
Automotive designers can afford that??
most things british are sloppy, low brow and poorly thought
I “pay” (Arizona is dirt cheap) for 15513. Don’t bother, it’s actually one five five one three. I have the same plate on the front, from Massachusetts 1964 (back before stickers). Why? Well my mom’s family had that Mass. plate from the 1920s until 2018 when my mom died. Mom was able to move it from my grandmother’s 64 Falcon to her car since it was direct family.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/c6tEvE9pqBRBnHCr9
Jason,
You missed some points. Some time ago, number plates could not be transferred between owners, only vehicles. So the seller had to transfer the “numbers” to a cheap vehicle, sell that vehicle and the the new owner could transfer the “numbers” to a new vehicle.
Note also that plates in the UK are made by local automotive stores. Today, you need some proof that you own the vehicle that will wear the plates, but years ago, you could just go into a store and ask them to make any plate you wanted.
One more thought on why plates are different in the UK: trailers do not get their own plates. Instead, they use the same numbers as the towing vehicle (which often means the plates must be easy to swap)
0% payplan? You can lease a number plate?
We lease cars so I guess leasing a license tag isn’t too insane? Wowzers.
I recognize this is slightly off-topic, but Ohio will have blackout plates in 2026!! I appreciate the simplicity of Euro plates.
do they still have the pink DUI plates?
I think they’re yellow – although it’s been a while since I’ve seen them. Before I knew what they were, I thought they were the coolest (still a better design, but I’m going to avoid getting them)
Yeah that sounds right. It’s been 20 years since I lived there but I remember thinking how odd it was for the state to publicly shame someone. I remember hearing the logic was that it alerted other drivers to be careful around a car with those plates. I guess it also limited how much folks drove in order to avoid embarrassment. I can’t imagine stepping in/out of a car with those plates every time I went to the grocery store.
Yup. It’s an interesting approach. That’s Ohio for ya…I don’t think it deterred people, but it made it embarrassing. I often wonder how many people actually know the meaning for them?
Definitely everyone on my bus in high school (we’d point them out when we saw them).
I’m sorry Jason, but you clearly are coming at this from a peasant’s perspective. The discomfort would simply never occur to him because just as he does not need a passport to travel (as all UK passports are issued in his name) King Charles does not need a driver’s license or number plates. There are perks to being a monarch after all.
It’s true C3R doesn’t need a license, and “state cars” don’t have number plates. However, the royals own many other cars, some of which do have personalised plates.
They aren’t still putting the 12 stars on there are they?
“Current year, changed every 6 months by adding 50.” Wait, what?
So for half the year 2025 is 2075?
From 1st March to 31st October, it was ’25’ in the plate, from 1st September to 28th Feb 2026 it’s ’75’.
My car was first registered in October 2020 – so it has ’70’.
In Sweden they introduced personalized plates in the early 1990s; similar system to in the US but at the time it cost SEK 5000, equal to $750 or so…
One local baker got BULLE (“bun”) on his plate, and went to Germany – where the Polizei immediately stopped him, as that has a meaning somewhere between “pig” and “cop” in German. This language concern makes life a lot harder for people who have to monitor for bad words, since we often take our cars abroad.
Similarly, my puerile self has had the combination BAJS on several vehicles in the US – it means “poop” in Swedish and occasionally causes delight on the road when I meet an expat.
I got lucky for my plate in Ohio. My girlfriend wanted to get my 501st Legion ID number (TK-40418) and I assumed it was going to be the $50 extra. But it turned out to be a “number reserve” or something because of the format and it’s only an extra $25.
Quite a few members have their TK ID’s as plates.
If my MGB was a GT, I would get this plate
https://www.regtransfers.co.uk/purchase/paymentoptions/0/mgb6t
They can’t even get blackout plates there. Most states now offer them.