The Rise Of Personal Number Plates

Personal Number Plates – How to get them looking like what you want.

Over the last 15 years or so, the popularity of personal number plates has increased at a rapid rate and they are ever becoming increasingly popular. Many people ditch the boring number plate their car was originally registered with to get something a lot more personal.

If you can’t find exactly what you want, there are many ways of ‘manipulating’ the letters and digits on the number plate to get something that looks like what you’re trying to spell. Use to guide below to see how this can be achieved.

Digit	Letter it could represent
0	D
1	I or L
2	R or Z
3	E
4	A
5	S
6	G or B
7	T or Y
8	A or B
6,8,9	O
9	G
11	U or H
12	R
13	B

So using the analogy above, if you wanted a registration for Albert, you could get A18 ERT. Similarly if you wanted a number plate for Julian, you could have J111 ANS. There are a few more combinations (shown below) that can be substituted for some letters.

Digit	Letter it could represent
1V	N
D	O
VV	W
V	U

There are many other little tricks to personalising your number plate. For example the digits on the registration could signify important or significant dates. These dates could include things like birthdays, lucky numbers, anniversaries, your house number, age etc.

So what happens to your old registration and number plates when you have purchased a personal number plate of your choice? Well usually the registration is cancelled and make void by the department of transport, unless you specifically ask them to retain the registration. This will cost a small administration fee, but allows you to retain your old registration mark. The department of transport also charges a fee of eighty pounds to transfer the new registration onto your vehicle, so you need to take this additional cost into account when making your purchase.

Another confusion for buyers is what documents are required when transferring a new registration to your car. There are many number plate dealers who will do this for you if you purchase the registration through them. This will save you a lot of hassle and the service is usually free. Occasionally an unscrupulous dealer might charge you extra for this, so make sure you read the small print in their literature or on their website. If you wish to do the transfer yourself, the documents you will require are the V5 (logbook), MOT (if applicable) and a copy of your tax disc.