Hands up!

[imam]

Those of you who have paid for non standard issue car number plates.

i.e. Vanity/cherished/look at me plates

You know the kind of thing - attempting to make your name out of a jumble of numbers and letters, moving so to give the illusion of a name.

e.g.

CH4 RlY

The are hundreds of thousands of similarly pathetic efforts.

Are you guilty of wasting your money so that others will think you are rich and be impressed?

[Libby]

Guilty of having a personalised number plate yes! I haven't juggled it around though or used italics of fancy lettering. The letters and numbers are exactly as they should be and the spacing is correct also. Only my family know what the number plate means. I personally can't stand the juggled around ones. £2000 fine apparently!

[imam]

Why did you do it? Do you have an identity issue?

[dt]

I have got two cherished plates now. I bought the first one originally in 1980 for about £700 (probably work now about 4.5K) . The only reason I bought it was that I had a Triumph Stag that was six years old but had only done 24,000 miles. Everyone in the office where I worked, kept reminding me that "It was only an N reg" at the time W was the latest. So I thought right lets stick a cherished one on with no year letter identifyer.
This really pissed some people off because after about two weeks or so they couldn't even remember what reg it was. I was continually asked thereafter but declined to disclose. If people ask you what reg is your car, they are the ones with the identity crisis as what they are really interested in, is what the car is worth.

I then bought another at a DVLA auction for 5K which would be about 10-15K then on the open market. They are an investment really and do not require maintenance like property. Unlike a painting they cannot be stolen either because all you do is fill in a form and DVLA will reassign the number to another car for you.

Further cherished plates are not the property of the registered keeper, they are the property of the Secretary of State. Hence no capital gains tax :0))

regards
DT

[sushimo]

I've never bought one, but I wish I had with hindsight. As dt says, they are an investment. A friend of mine bought one years back, and it's now worth a small fortune - almost enough to buy a house! Definitely beats inflation, so I would recommend that if you see, and can afford a decent one, grab it. Way better than investing money atm!

[dt]

I saw "FU 2" for sale in the Times offered for £1,000,000 sometime last year. It was local to me as well, as it was on a 911.

There is also more demand for them now than previously.

[cryptonomiumo]

Are you dt as in 'DaTerminator' from the old board. No, can't be. He never said anything sensible.

Yes, they certainly can be an investment. They can also be arse-clenchingly embarrassing too, as in the 'S##AXY' I saw on a Barried-up Citroen Saxo today (as in, it's sexy, and it's a Saxo, so it's 'SAXY' GEDDIT???)

[fastkat]

I don't drive, so this sort of vanity has passed me by, thankfully.

I don't see why people can't personalise their plates further as long as no-one duplicates the name in the computer database. It would be rather fun to see cars have real/pet/nicknames personal to the owner.

[dt]

Yep that is me Crypto dt as in Da Terminator, I think someone else pinched the nickname here as I could not use it. And before you ask, no its not actionable :0))

DT

[Chromo]

Yeah, the mangled alphanumeric number plates are a bit pathetic.
I was impressed by a Ferari Dino with the plates 50BER though, and diminutive lady driving a Chevy in Illinois with the plates TU SHORT.