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
Some number plates become valuable because they are rare. Others become significant because of the story attached to them. CA 1 belongs to the second category as much as the first.
The registration has a long association with Cape Town and has been connected to the city’s mayoral office for decades. Its history reaches back to the early motoring era of the Cape, making it more than simply a low-number registration.
It is a piece of Cape Town’s motoring heritage.
To understand CA 1, it is necessary to understand the history of the CA registration prefix.
The CA prefix was historically associated with Cape Town in the former Cape Province. Cape Town was the largest city represented by the CA registration code, while other towns and cities in the Cape were allocated their own prefixes.
The modern Western Cape registration system is therefore connected to a much older registration tradition. Today, CA remains strongly associated with Cape Town, although the province eventually introduced CAA registrations after the available CA combinations were exhausted. The transition began in 2019.
Against that background, a registration as short as CA 1 carries an unusual degree of historical significance.
Historical accounts associate CA 1 with Sir Alfred Hennessy, an early motoring figure in Cape Town.
According to a historical record accompanying a photograph from 1947, Hennessy took out the first driving licence in Cape Town and his car carried the registration CA 1. He continued using the registration until shortly before his death in 1963.
Following his death, his family handed the registration over for use by the mayors of Cape Town. That transfer fundamentally changed the character of the registration. CA 1 was no longer simply a privately held low number. It became associated with the office of the city’s mayor.
The association with the mayoralty gave CA 1 a form of provenance that is difficult to reproduce.
The registration has subsequently appeared on vehicles used by Cape Town mayors. Contemporary reporting in the late 2000s and early 2010s documented the plate on mayoral vehicles, including a Toyota Prius used by then-mayor Helen Zille.
The plate was therefore recognisable not simply because it was short, but because motorists associated CA 1 with Cape Town’s civic leadership.
This is an important distinction in collector markets. A plate can be rare without being historically important. CA 1 combines both characteristics.
The significance of the single-digit CA registrations extends beyond CA 1.
CA 2 and CA 3 have also attracted attention from collectors and enthusiasts because of their place within the same historic sequence.
A 2009 account of CA 2 reported that the Hennessy family had previously owned both CA 1 and CA 2. CA 1 was subsequently associated with the mayoralty, while CA 2 remained privately held. CA 3 also became a notable registration among Cape Town enthusiasts.
The three registrations illustrate the strength of the single-digit CA format: CA 1 — CA 2 — CA 3
Each consists of only two letters and one number, creating an extremely short and recognisable combination.
The collector interest surrounding the CA registrations was already significant by the late 2000s.
In 2009, CA 3 was sold for R340,000, with contemporary reporting describing it as potentially the most expensive number plate sold in South Africa at the time.
The transaction provides useful historical evidence for the value of ultra-short Western Cape registrations.
It also demonstrates that collector demand for rare plates predates the later high-profile sales of Gauteng registrations.
CA 1 provides an excellent example of why number-plate valuation cannot be based exclusively on character count. A three-character plate can have very different values depending on what those three characters represent.
CA 1 provides an excellent example of why number-plate valuation cannot be based exclusively on character count. A three-character plate can have very different values depending on what those three characters represent.