Vanity Plates Get Pricey

Usually we’re the ones informing our readers, but today KickingTires would like you to explain something to us: What’s the deal with spending a literal fortune on a license plate?

We pose this question in the wake of several stories involving very rich men spending oodles of cash on specialized vanity plates. Delaware resident Frank Vassallo IV bought a license plate with only the number 6 on it for $675,000. He explained to reporters, “It’s a family thing. … It’s a Delaware thing.” Who knows how much the number “1” would have cost him…

Oh wait, we do know, because Saeed Khouri, a member of a wealthy Abu Dhabi family in the United Arab Emirates, bought a license plate with the number 1 for $14 million.

OK, so the answer would be $14 million.

When explaining his decision to purchase the exorbitant license plate to The New York Times, Khouri made the argument sound very simple: “I bought it because it’s the best number. … I bought it because I want to be the best in the world.”

Now, one might infer all sorts of things about the poisoning power of unrestrained wealth, especially in the Middle East, where extreme economic disparities help fuel violent extremism, but let’s just say that this reasoning sounds suspect at best. At least Khouri’s money went to a charity to help victims of traffic accidents, while Vassallo was at a traditional auction, where the money went to a private party. But still.

Maybe these purchases would make a degree of sense if the plates had some kind of message or clever pun, but just a number? A London man named Afzal Kahn bought a plate that reads only “F1” for just under a million bucks, but at least he got a letter.

Let us know what you think about this trend and how much you would pay for a license plate if you had all-but-unlimited disposable income.

The $14 Million License Plate (The New York Times)
Delaware Man Spends $675k on License Plate 6 (Autoblog)
No. 6 Delaware license plate draws a record $675,000 at auction (Cape Gazette)