This £12m number plate has set a new world record at auction

Private number plates are often a controversial subject. Some love them, some loathe them. But let’s just say the perfect plate for you came up at auction – how much would you be willing to pay for it?

How about just over £12m? Well, that’s exactly how much an anonymous bidder paid for the Dubai-based ‘P 7’ plate a few days ago, setting a new world record in the process.

Yep, the fee of 55m UAE dirhams eclipses the previous record of 52.2m dirhams set in 2008 for the holy grail of single-digit plates, ‘1’. It also raises the question - what car is worthy of a £12m plate?

Both ‘1’ and ‘P 7’ were sold by Emirates Auction to gain their respective world records, with the latest sale raising funds for a UAE-based food aid charity called the One Billion Meals Endowment.