The photo was published by Carscoops. As foreign colleagues note, this is the first license plate for a car that was issued in the Australian state of Victoria. It was made back in 1932, but until 1984 no one really used the exclusive "plate." For half a century, the state number was kept in the storage of the Department of Motor Vehicle Registration, as local authorities (the police commissioner, the premier, and the state governor) could not agree on who was honored to drive with such a VIP number.
When the license plate with the digit "1" was finally taken out of storage, it was sold at a state auction for 127 thousand US dollars. In 1984, that was a colossal amount of money, but since then the price of this number has only continued to grow.
In less than four decades, the state plate has moved from one car to another. First, it was used by the owner of a Saab 9000 Turbo, then it was "seen" on a Ferrari, Rolls-Royce, HSV SV5000, Porsche 911 Turbo, 911 Carrera, Mercedes-Benz E55 AMG, and E63 AMG. Now it is installed on the "most ordinary" Mercedes-AMG C 43 station wagon.
By the way, in Australia, local rich people quite often compete at auctions for the right to own a particular license plate. For example, last year in the same state of Victoria, a state plate with the number "26" (in the photo above) was sold under the hammer for 847 thousand US dollars, and in 2018, an unknown person paid 392 thousand US dollars for the state number "101."
