Personalised number plates – Everyone seems to have one!

Personalised number plates are a great way to add some character to your car

From sports stars, to movie stars, to pop stars to TV celebrities, everyone seems to want to get personalised number plates for their cars. Amazingly we already know who most of these people are already and they certainly don’t need their name on their cars for most of us to spot them. So why do they do it? Well it’s all about personalising your car and making it stand out!

It used to be the case many years ago that only the cream of celebrities driving in their Bentleys or Rolls-Royces' could afford a private registration. However times have now changed and ever-growing lists of celebrities have private registrations. The reason for this being that many more combinations of registrations are now available, making getting one to match your name more likely.

Celebrity number plates tend to either contain the person's initials or based upon the profession they are in. For example, Cristiano Ronaldo (who plays football for Manchester United) has a combination of the two. He bought CR 7 for himself, with the 'C' and 'R' denoting his initials and the number '7' denoting the number seven short he wears for Manchester United. Similarly the boxer Amir Khan, has the registration 'BOX 111G', which stands for BOXING, the sport in which he is a world beater. If you ever went down to a training session for a premier league football club, the players car park would be sure to be littered with dozens of nice cars with private registrations.

Perhaps some of the most prominent TV personalities today would include Theo Paphitis and Duncan Bannatyne, both from Dragon’s Den. They both are ardent number plate enthusiasts with a number of personalised number plates between them. Theo Paphitis owns a whole host of private registrations based around his name, family members and his many businesses. Similarly Duncan Bannatyne has numerous registrations mainly based on his name and members of his family. Perhaps they have an on going competition between themselves to see who can collect the most private registrations!

It’s not just celebrities who collect private registrations. Some businesses and businessmen are known to have a passion for collection a series of number plates, which become part and parcel of their business image. This could be for all their work vans or for their company cars. Many a time you see limousines that you can hire from a company having a series of similar registrations. This helps build up brand recognition for the company concerned and also a bit of tongue and cheek fun to go along with it as well.