What kind of plates do our favourite celebs choose?
Even now, when personal number plates are more popular than ever and countless people have personalised their cars with cleverly chosen registrations, it still seems to be the private plates owned by the rich and famous that really get people talking.
Readers of our fantastic FREE magazine, The World of Personal Number Plates, will be familiar with the host of glittering stars who have kindly spared their valuable time to give us exclusive interviews and photo shoots. If you've missed any of our celebrity stories you can catch up online by checking out our magazine back issues.
So, exactly what kind of private registrations do celebs choose? Is there a typical celeb plate? What do they look for when they set out to personalise their Range Rovers, Rolls-Royces and Ferraris? To be honest, we'd never really thought about it, so we thought it might be fun to analyse the numbers owned by our famous friends to see if we could spot a trend or a common theme.
As we have probably spoken to more famous customers than any other private plate supplier, we decided to use 64 of those people as the sample for our terribly scientific survey. When I say "terribly scientific" I mean, of course, that our methodology would, no doubt, be considered terrible science by anyone who does this kind of thing professionally. Fortunately, this is just a bit of fun and not a serious investigation of the celebrity psyche.
Herding celebrities
Chris Tarrant
We came up with ten categories into which we sorted our celebrity number plates: initials, names, nicknames jobs/careers, words, companies/brands, hobbies, number 1s, cars and cryptic.
It seems that the least popular inspiration amongst our celebrity cast is hobbies and interests. Game show host Chris Tarrant, a keen angler, was delighted with his CHU 8B plate (for those who didn't know, a chubb is a kind of fish). However, he finds himself alone in the celebrity hobbies category.
The cryptic registrations category contains those plates whose hidden meanings are obvious only to their owners. There are two people under this heading: former Holby City actor Noah Huntley and champion powerboat racer and water speed record-breaker Gina Campbell. Noah told us that his B4 WCH plate meant 'before Will Curtis Holby'. This reference to his character in Holby City was a reminder to himself that there was a life before he took on his role in the popular TV drama and that there would be a life after the part was played out. Meanwhile, Gina's K7 DAD is a tribute to her late father, Donald Campbell, who died in 1967 during a water speed record attempt. The K7 in Gina's registration is a reference to her father's boat, Bluebird K7.
Down to business
Theo Paphitis
Next in our ranking of nine categories comes company branding. TV Dragon Theo Paphitis and entrepreneur Rodger Dudding have both owned plates that made reference to companies in their portfolios. Theo had a fine Ryman number, RYM 4N, while Rodger's DHL 1 plate contained the initials of his main business interest.
Alias
Ian Botham
Considering how many stars are known by nicknames, a surprisingly small number from our sample went that route when acquiring private plates - just four out of more than 60 celebs. Sportsmen Sir Ian 'Beefy' Botham, Phil 'The Cat' Tufnell and Jeremy 'Jezza' Lynch have all owned plates alluding to their nicknames, as has legendary veteran radio DJ 'Diddy' David Hamilton. When we visited David a few years ago, we were delighted to see his wonderful D1 DDY plate displayed on a Mini. Now there's a man who knows how to get the most out of a good gag.
John Collins
Fourth place is shared by three categories: cars, words and number 1s. We find five of our famous owners in each of these. Three denizens of the cars list are professionally immersed in the topic and so their inclusion is natural. One of Adam Thorby's choices is an eccentric one for the mastermind behind the prestigious SuperCar Driver Club. Instead of a plate alluding to a sporty performance model, Adam qualifies for this category with CL10 SCD, which is on a Renault Clio Sport! Top dealers Carl Hartley and John Collins redress the balance for the elite side of things. Carl's qualifying number is 488 SPY, referring to a Ferrari 488 Spyder, while John's number, 25 O (for Ferrari GTO 250) broke the record for UK's most expensive auction registration when he purchased it for £518,000 in November 2014.
The words category includes TV life coach Nick Speakman and designer Kelly Hoppen, who have owned 10 RD (Lord) and T8 UPE (taupe) respectively. Nick's plate referred to a title he purchased some years ago and Kelly's to her signature colour that she favours in her design work. Gok Wan, Tenor Russell Watson and writer Martina Cole find themselves here by merit of CL07 HES, T3 NOR and 8 OOK respectively, but we'll see more of them later.
One of a kind
Engelbert Humperdinck
There seems to be an automatic assumption by many people that a posh car displaying a nice number 1 plate is probably owned by someone rich or famous. Owners get used to onlookers peering curiously through their car windows to see if the driver is anyone they recognise. Despite that stereotype, only five of our celebs opted for number 1 plates. Veteran singer Engelbert Humperdinck and businessman John Madejski both combine their initials with the number 1, so we have included them in both this category and the initials one.
Martina Cole
The third most popular choice amongst celebrities is a plate that alludes to their jobs and careers. Examples include best-selling author Martina Cole with the excellent 8 OOK plate that we mentioned earlier, hair stylist Nicky Clarke, who owned the eye-catching H41 RDO, singer Russell Watson with his T3 NOR plate and boxer Amir Khan with BOX 111G. Magician Paul Daniels owned MAG 1C, one of the most famous number plates of all. Gok Wan's qualifying plate here, once again, is the splendid CL07 HES. That makes eleven of our famous owners in this category.
Runner up and winner
Vinnie Jones
In second place, with 14 members, we find the hugely popular initials category. For celebrities and ordinary mortals alike, initials are amongst the most flexible and readily available options. Footballer turned actor Vinnie Jones, motor racing trailblazer Sir Stirling Moss, TV Dragons Duncan Bannatyne and James Caan, jockey Frankie Dettori and actor Robert Hardy are found among the ranks of those whose cars have displayed their initials.
Coleen Nolan
Top of the pops in the world of celebrity number plates are names. Each of the categories here has its appeal and its devotees, but a good name registration is, perhaps, the epitome of number plate desirability. A hefty 24 of our celebrity sample chose to personalise their cars with either their first or last names on a plate. TV presenters Linda Lusardi, Denise van Outen and Coleen Nolan have all owned their names on number plates. Business people Theo Paphitis, Luisa Zissman and David Gold, actors Tyger Drew-Honey and James Buckley, sportsmen Daniel Dubois, David Haye, Andros Townsend, Alex Dowsett, Conor Benn and Chris Eubank Jr, comedian Russell Kane, TOWIE's Amy Childs and Tommy Mallet, and singer-songwriter Jay Kay, frontman of Jamiroquai, have also gone down this route of ultimate personalisation.
What are your favourite celebrity car registrations? Have you seen any that we might not know about? Drop us a line to [email protected]. We'd love to hear from you!
