Single-letter license plate sells for $3.2 million in Hong Kong

Vehicles travel along a road at night in Hong Kong, China, on Monday, March 28, 2022. Even as secondhand-vehicle prices break records in the U.S. and other countries, people in Hong Kong are struggling to offload their cars as a surge of residents move out of the city after two years of punishing Covid restrictions.

A personalized license plate sold for HK$25.5 million ($3.2 million) at an auction in Hong Kong on Sunday, the second-highest bid on record for a city where eye-catching and sometimes bewildering car plates are a common sight.

Sunday’s bid was for a license plate with the letter “R” and came at a Lunar New Year auction organized by the Hong Kong Transport Department. It was just short of a record HK$26 million bid for the letter “W” in 2021, according to rankings published by the Secretary for Transport Lam Sai-hung.

There have been more than 160 auctions and over 40,000 plates have been registered since the personalized car plate system was introduced in 2006, bringing in more than HK$600 million for the government, according to Lam.

People can register to apply for their license plate of choice, kicking off a process that sometimes lasts as long as 18 months before the plate goes on auction. Applicants must pay HK$5,000 deposit, and if there are no other bidders, then that plate will be theirs for the deposit amount.

The winning bid for “R” was 5,100 times the reserve price and represented more than 80% of the total raised at Sunday’s auction, the government said in a statement.

Users on Hong Kong social media forum LIHKG said the reason for the high bid may be that “R” is the first letter in the word “rich.” It could also be down to feng shui, with “R” representing good fortune for the next 20 years, local media HK01 reported.

The Transport Department declined to provide any further information on the winning bidder.