Personalising number plates: your full guide
There was a slight decline in the sale of personalised number plates at the start of the world economic downturn of the mid to late 2000s. But in recent years, it’s gone from strength-to-strength with the DVLA reporting the sale of over 400,000 registration numbers in the 2018/19 tax year. This might be due to all the advantages that come with having original and unique private number plates. Besides adding extra value to your car, it separates one vehicle from another while attracting people's attention and curiosity. It is a quick and fun process, as you'll only need to fill out a collection of brief forms to have your personalized private plate.
Indeed, personalised registration number sales have pulled in close to £2 billion in revenue for the government since the 1980s. The most expensive number plate in the UK is “25 O”, purchased for the princely sum of £400,000 in November 2014. There’s even a speculative market in trading number plates with investors buying numbers in the hope that they’ll rise in value over time.
A brief history
Personalised plates developed something of a bad rap in the 1980s during a decade of excess and declining employment where ordinary people quickly tired of ostentatious displays of wealth. Spending inordinate sums of money on personalised number plates was frowned upon and seen as the preserve of a wealthy elite. As we moved into the nineties, they’ve become popular among a much broader social base. The early 2000s saw a slight upturn before 2007’s decline. From the start of the 2010s, things have recovered to such an extent that some license plate traders have reported an average of 5% annual increases on personalised plates.
Today
There’s any number of providers out there retailing plates at discount prices. For example, you can look up prices on a massive range of cheap private number plates from PrimoRegistrations today. But there’s a lot of debate about personalised plates among motorists, leading us to the most important question of all: when did they become cool?
The lesson here is that people love personalisation and motorists more than most. Personalising your car with a number plate can be a fun way of really making your vehicle your own, as can gifting personalised number plates to a loved one. At heart, personal number plates are a special kind of branding; this essential truth is reflected in Alan Sugar’s personal number plate “AMS 1”, named in honour of his Amstrad computer business empire.
How to personalise a number plate properly
Less is more
One thing to know early about number plates is that less is more. You’ll pay top dollar for some of the shorter registrations. The top five most expensive plates ever sold at auction in the UK all had less than five characters.
Full name plates
If either your forename or surname is seven characters or less, you could try getting the whole thing on there, but unless you have an unusual name, the plate will likely already be registered. More to the point, even if the number plate is available, it’s likely to cost you more money for a plate in such high demand.
A warning against number plate humour
One less common way of personalising your number plates is with a joke. We’ve all spotted one of these cars speeding along the motorway at some point in our lives, and most of us have inwardly cringed.
Maybe there’s a more interesting joke to be made with a number plate, but for the most part, it’s best to steer clear of questionable humour and bad jokes. In the UK, the DVLA actually bans several offensive plates every year.
Initials and birthdays are your best bet
The cheapest custom option for private plates will be incorporating the owner’s initials or birthday within other generic letters and numbers. These kinds of license plates start at about £100 and go all the way up to the high hundreds. If you’re looking for a set of plates that reflect both the owner’s date of birth and their name, you might be looking at £1000 and upwards.
There are other fun things you can do with number plates. Lots of people choose to display their profession, their hobbies or just their personalities.
Buy from an authentic provider
If you purchase online or even just from a market trader, how do you know you’re buying something legitimate? With recent spikes in UK license plate theft, there’s a massive black market out there for personalised plates. The last thing you want is to end up with these inadvertently. In London alone, the DVLA dish out hundreds of penalties to drivers displaying illegal plates every year. That’s why it’s important to only buy from sellers that are DVLA-registered.
So there you go, everything you need to know (and more) about how to take the next step and personalise your plates. Now it’s up to you to decide whether you’re ready to have some fun and join the trend.
