‘A1’ – from the Earl’s Napier to the Prince’s Azure

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In no other country than the United Kingdom number plates have been an ultimate in motorists’ accessories for many decades. We remember the cool Dodge Viper in Cambridge as a youngster with the number ‘WOW 110T’ and a black screw secured right in between the 1s.

But the ultimate in numbers are the earliest of plates issues to motorcars – which are also the shortest. And shortest is considered best in the spectrum of number plate aficionados. There is, of course, a website dedicated to them - intriguity secured. All the numbers seen here remain in circulation since the earliest days of motoring and their ownership has been passed along many times mostly. Just occasionally the number remains in a particular family for generations and it’s easy to see which they are. No bling-bling there.

Of all these the most ‘cherished’ of number plates has to be ‘A1’, which was the first registration number given out by the London county council and has to be the most valuable in the world now. The number was secured by the Earl John Francis Stanley Russell who queued outside their offices in 1903 to acquire the registration number for his Napier. He had it until 1906. That year he sold the car with the beloved plate on it and a year later it ended up with a gentleman called George Pettyt, who happened to be chairman of the same London county council where Earl Russell got it from! Pettyt kept the number and had it transferred on to various other cars, the last being a Sunbeam Talbot when he died in 1950. The number was then left to a mister Trevor Laker who in turn kept the registration number until he died in 1970, just as stipulated in the will of Mister Pettyt.

After Laker ‘A1’ was purchased by Dunlop for £2500, with the money donated to the Guide Dogs for the Blind, as stated by mister Laker. Dunlop used it on a number of cars, among them a Daimler limousine that was used to transport VIP's to and from the Dunlop factories, but also on a humble Mini used by the director of engineering. In the early 2000s, the plate was on the market once more and snapped up by a Brunei prince who used it on his Bentley Azure only to become available last year again when John McDevitt is said to have become the (current) owner for a price of just under two million pounds. A bit over the top for a motoring accessory? You can always have your A1 cufflinks for a mere £7.95...

Words by Jeroen Booij.

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