Success on a plate at huge Wigan car reg auction

Lynsay Martin from the DVLA with a registration plate which went up for auction

Sought-after registrations for vehicles have been going under the hammer at Macdonald Kilhey Court in Standish for two days, with the auction set to conclude today.

And the most popular plates have been raising thousands of pounds for the Treasury’s coffers.

High sellers yesterday included 250 M, which was sold for £20,600, and 1 LVH which finally set its purchaser back £18,700.

From left: DVLA staff Chris Phillips, Lynsay Martin and Tom Prosser at the three-day event held at Macdonald Kilhey Court Hotel, Standish

The gavel also came down at £14,000 on the plate DUL 44Y, while 11 CEM fetched £12,800 and 800 AM was eventually sold for £10,700.

The most anticipated lot of the auction, the plate 29 O, also went under the hammer last night with the winning bid expected to be somewhere between £30,000 and £40,000.

The DVLA holds five such auctions of plates a year and this one, the first to be held in Wigan, is the fourth in 2018.

The auctions are always hugely popular and every seat in the auction room at Kilhey Court has been taken with further prospective bidders standing when some of the most hotly-anticipated registrations have been up for sale.

Motoring enthusiasts travelled the length and breadth of the country to be in the borough for the event while banks of telephone operators have been taking calls from around the world and bids have been submitted online.

The choice of the Chorley Road hotel as a venue for the private registrations sale has gone down very well with organisers and bidders alike.

It also appears the sale, which started on Wednesday morning, has generated a bit of a boost for the local economy.

A DVLA spokesperson said: “Wigan has been a tremendous host. People have been saying it is a lovely venue and they want to return.

“We had a couple who had driven down from Stirling in Scotland and there was a group who had driven up from London, stayed overnight in the hotel and bought one of the first plates on sale in the morning.”

The 1,250 lots under the hammer this week have included registrations paying tribute to everything from cricket and football to the films Rocky and Frozen.