UK's 'most expensive numberplate ever' is heading on auction for £1.2m for bizarre reason
People across history have always been keen to show off their wealth, whether it's lavish holidays, luxury clothing or live laugh love prints in every room of their house.
If the huge mansions and sports car collections weren't quite enough to win you some friends, now the rich and famous will have the opportunity to win another huge prize in this materialistic society, by getting their hands on one of the world's most coveted number plates.
There are plenty of funny number plates that have already been banned by the DVLA, so if you're thinking that someone is paying over the odds just to have W4NK3R on their car, then you'd sadly be wrong.
You then might expect the number plate to be something cool like 007 or A1 but it turns out the plate which is set to reach a pretty penny is actually very simple.
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Sholto Gilbertson, RM Sotheby's UK director of sales, said: "The market’s fascination with exclusive, private registration plates continues unabated.
"With occasional exceptions, it is the general rule that the shortest, two-digit numbers command the strongest money, although the current UK auction world record is for a three-digit number.
"The registration number ‘1F’ has previously changed hands privately for a substantial sum, so there is a very high chance that it could set a new world auction price when the hammer drops on 1 November."
Yep, it's just 1F, and it could sell for anywhere between £800,000 and £1.2 million at next month's auction.
On their website, the auction house muses: "In his own inimitable commentary style, the late, great Murray Walker once said: '"If" is a very long word in Formula 1; in fact, "if" is "F1" spelled backwards.' A brilliant line typical of a man affectionately known as 'the voice of F1'.
"It could be pointed out that 'F1' backwards is instead '1F', like the very special registration number offered here."
It will have to sell for more than £608,600 if it wants to earn the title of being the most expensive of all time, after the previous record was smashed at a sale back in July.
The previous highest publicly disclosed sale price for a UK plate was £518,480, achieved in 2014 by 25 O, but it was JB1 which took the record back in summer, with collectors keen on its history after it was first sold to Jack Barclay (sadly not James Bond) in 1932.
Much like Arsenal, JB1's position at the top is unlikely to last long, as it seems as if 1F will sell for at least £200,000 more when it goes on auction at RM Sotheby's in November.
The plate was first registered to a vehicle in the Essex area in 1957 and was most recently applied to a £300k Ferrari.
So if you want to pay for a number plate which probably costs several times more than your favourite sports car, then you can show up to next month's auction, which experts have said represents an 'outstanding opportunity for collectors to give their car an instant identity.'
James Moorhouse