Number Plates News

Australian Plate Makes The Grade

20 August 2010

Australian auctioneers, Shannons, raised the impressive equivalent of £460,000 at their latest event held in Melbourne this week.

80% of the lots on offer were sold and included ten Victorian [the state, not the monarch!] 'Heritage' enamelled plates featuring five much sought-after three-digit registrations: These included '599' - alluding to the Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano V12 - attracted £54,000 and '412 - possibly relevant to the driver of a 1980s Ferrari Grand Tourer - raised £37,000.

By comparison, some earlier and usually more desirable marks, such as '329' and '773', did not fare quite as well as pundits had predicted, with winning bids of £32,000 and £29,000 respectively.

Among the other top sellers were some examples of the strange configurations peculiar to Australian system, such as '1.777' which closed at £13,000, '80.000' at £11,000 and '20.999' going for £9000.

The catalogue also included 13 classic motorcycles and many items of automobilia, including enamel garage signs and original petrol pumps.

The £54,000 price tag on the registration '599' is the highest we have heard of in the Australian market and earns a place in the table of top-selling registrations world-wide.

Please click here to see our full fascinating list of The World's Most Expensive Number Plates.

As a footnote to the current Australian general election campaign, it has been noted that Tony Abbott, the rival to incumbent Welsh-born Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, has a registration with the prefix 'ZZZ' on his campaign vehicle.