While driving home from work last night, I ended up stuck in traffic (as I so often seem to) behind a large 4×4. As my commute routinely involves 40 mins in slow moving traffic, I habitually spend a large portion of my time staring at the back end of various cars. This one was unremarkable, save for the fact that it was sporting a personalised number plate, reading 17A. As I continued my walking-speed journey home, I found myself thinking the two thoughts I always think when encountering a personalised number plate –

1) What is the significance of the numbers and letters?

2) How much did it cost?

Of course, the first question sometimes answers itself. “Boss 1” or “J4MES” are pretty self explanatory, but sometimes it’s not so clear. In this case, what was the significance of 17A..? Presumably the number has some special meaning to the owner; in particular (as I intuitively thought) as it must have been expensive.

Which brings us to question two – price. I’m aware that private registration plates can be hugely expensive. In fact, I’ve flirted with the idea of getting some myself, despite the dark looks and mutterings of “mid-life crisis” from my wife. They are unique and individual, and would add that extra special touch while adorning my Merc. However, then price can indeed be prohibitively expensive. Plate prices can range all the way from around a grand, to being more expensive than your average super car. Indeed, the most expensive licence plate ever sold simply read “1” and was purchased at a charity auction in the UAE in 2008 for the eye-watering price of £3.5 million. So possibly not the cheapest car accessory you could come by…

Of course, there was no way of knowing the cost of that 17A private number plate, or what it stood for – but I wondered all the way home.

I’ve been messing around on the DVLA website this afternoon looking at a personalised number plate. It is my 40th birthday this year and thought I’d mark this milestone (if you would call it that) by getting something special.

I went to the DVLA website and typed my initials in as I definitely wanted them and clicked search. 23 pages of number plates came up and I started trawling through them until I found the perfect one. I previewed the number plate on Volkswagen Golf as that’s the car I have, although not that new and nice looking!

Check the picture below, what do you recon? Not bad for £250 and it has 40 in it as well. Might have to ask the wife nicely if I can order it now so I don’t lose out on it, which might be a struggle because my birthday isn’t until July

The snows really starting to grate on me now, road surfacing is starting to break up and small potholes are now big pot holes and there’s new big pot holes where there wasn’t before.

The only thing that I’m glad about, is not having to clear ice from my windscreen on a morning. The best car that i had in the winter was my Ford Fiesta RS Turbo, mainly because it had a heated windscreen, which was a great labour saving device as it just put that on when my windscreen was iced up and within minutes i was able to drive off without cold and damp fingers. As any RS Turbo owner will know the cold weather brings you another great gain which is the cold air which is denser and gave your car more noticeable power.

Anyway i have noticed that recently that some cars are better than others in the snow. Vauxhall Corsas seem to be great which ever model you have, where as Astra’s seem to be a little bit poo, and you can’t even put it down to larger alloy wheels because the one I’m think of has steel wheels.

Out of town there’s still quite a bit of snow around and personally I think it’s going to be another 3 weeks before the majority of roads and fields are clear.

Fiesta RS Turbo

When looking for a left hand drive vehicle in London you should employ a specialist who trades in these left hand drive vehicles. Finding the right one can mean that there will be friendly and helpful staff members who are keen to assist you find the left hand drive car that is perfect for you, this is vital, you are after all spending hard earned cash.

Your left hand drive vehicle London dealer will be able to provide imported cars from a wide selection of top manufactures and at prices to suit all budgets. Normally these would be British registered but some are registered in other European countries and it is here that the specialist will be happy to offer advice about registration elsewhere. Also he will be able to help as some cars are available Tax and Duty free for use outside Europe.

So what are you looking for when you decide that you would like to buy  left hand drive cars in London? First and foremost you want great value and a vehicle that is competitively priced. The left hand drive vehicle needs to be thoroughly checked through and if imported all paper work in order. You may require help with the insurance, there are specialist companies that are specialist in left hand drive vehicle insurance. Why take a chance, find that specialist left hand drive vehicle London retailer today.