P 7 Sold for $15 million
AA9 Sold for $10.3 million
CA 3 Sold for R340,000
1 FS Sold for R220,000
1-GP to 8-GP Auction Sold as a complete set for R1,890,000
9-GP Auction Sold for R167,000
MANDELA-GP Auction Sold for R66,000
1-CAA Estimated up to R150,000
A number plate carrying a single letter and a single digit, P 7, sold for 55 million UAE dirhams, about $15 million, at a Dubai auction on Saturday, 8 April 2023. Emirates Auction, which ran the sale, called it a new world record. The buyer chose to stay anonymous.
Guinness World Records lists P 7, at $14.97 million, as the most expensive car registration sold.
The sale was part of the Most Noble Numbers charity auction. The proceeds go to the 1 Billion Meals Endowment, a food-aid fund launched by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Ruler of Dubai. The auction as a whole raised 97.92 million dirhams.
P 7 broke a record that had stood since 2008, when Abu Dhabi’s plate 1 sold for 52.2 million dirhams, about $14.2 million, at another Emirates Auction event. Guinness World Records had listed that plate as the record holder until the Dubai sale.
Prices elsewhere show how unusual the Dubai figure is. In February 2023, a Hong Kong plate with nothing on it but the letter R sold for about $3.2 million.
Dubai has seen high prices for rare plates before. In 2016, businessman Balvinder Singh Sahni bought D 5 for 33 million dirhams, about $9 million. He later told Bloomberg, “Dubai is a city of gold.” For buyers like him, a rare plate is about status as much as driving. A few characters on a number plate can carry a price more often associated with the car itself.