- This is the third most expensive vehicle registration in the city; letter is connected to auspicious words such as “dragon” and “dollar”
- Second highest price plate sells for HK$1.01 million, bearing “132”; “TT 1” is sold for HK$840,000
A special car number plate “D” raked in the highest amount at the Transport Department’s auction. Photo: Yik Yeung-manA number plate in Hong Kong carrying simply the letter “D” sold for HK$20.2 million (US$2.6 million). This is the third most expensive vehicle registration in the city.
The plate was one of 49 up for grabs at the annual Lunar New Year auction held by the Transport Department.
Industry insiders said plates with a single letter or digit were very rare in Hong Kong, which made them coveted.
The “D” plate caused talk of fetching at least HK$10 million before the auction as the letter is connected to auspicious words such as “dragon” and “dollar”.
The department set a reserve price of HK$5,000 at about 3.30pm – but the first bidder offered HK$5 million.
Two rival prospective buyers soon emerged, which pushed the price up in HK$50,000 increments until the battle ended when one made the HK$20.2 million winning bid after more than 74 rounds that lasted about half an hour.
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The auction, which included 25 other number plates which sold, raised more than HK$24.52 million, which will go into government coffers. Another 23 plates on offer, however, failed to sell.
The second most expensive plate contained only the digits “132” and sold for HK$1.01 million. The third priciest plate of the night was “TT 1”, which was snapped up for HK$840,000.
Ringo Lee Yiu-pui, the honorary life president of the recently renamed Hong Kong, China Automobile Association, said single digit or letter number plates were particularly popular because of their rarity.
“There are only 23 English alphabet letters that can be used and Arabic numerals one to nine,” he said. “There cannot be repetitions. But there are a lot more combinations in two-digit or even three-digit number plates.”
Transport Department’s guidelines stipulate “I”, “O” and “Q” cannot be used in number plates.
Authorities launched public auctions of customised vehicle registration marks in 2006, which allowed people to submit suggestions of no more than eight digits or letters plus a space.
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Sunday’s “D” plate topped the record held by the “V” plate, sold in 2017 for HK$13 million, but was HK$5.3 million short of the bid for the “R” plate sold last year.
The most expensive licence plate auctioned in Hong Kong carries only the letter “W” and went for HK$26 million in 2021, 5,200 times the reserve price.
A plate saying “1 L0VE U”, the sixth most expensive on record, sold for HK$1.4 million.
Lam Sai-hung, the transport and logistics secretary, said earlier this month that authorities had held more than 160 auctions involving nearly 40,000 plates, which had generated HK$600 million in revenue.