It is an open secret that when it comes to expensive special edition number plates, Yang di-Pertuan Agong Sultan Ibrahim Sultan Iskandar possesses an enviable collection.
A posting on Sultan Ibrahim’s Facebook page today said His Majesty had acquired the “GOLD 1” number plate for a whopping RM1.5 million.
This broke his previous record of forking out RM1.2 million for the number plate “FF1” last year, making it the most expensive number plate issued for a single vehicle in Malaysia at the time.
According to the post, Transport Minister Anthony Loke presented a symbolic “GOLD 1” number plate to Sultan Ibrahim after being granted an audience with His Majesty at Istana Negara.
Loke had also presented the “FF1” number plate to Sultan Ibrahim last year.
VIP secrecy
In 2015, former Road Transport Department director-general Ismail Ahmad said the department had kept the names of royalty, cabinet ministers, and judges who bid for car registration plates secret because of a cabinet rebuke in 2012.
He said the department received a tongue-lashing from Putrajaya after it disclosed Sultan Ibrahim’s winning bid for a licence plate.
“We were reprimanded by the cabinet in 2012 when we (revealed) Tuanku’s tender amount, for example. We were open and transparent.
“People were making noise about the RM748,000 he bid. They put it up on Facebook and so on, chastising the sultan, ‘Where did he get the money, there are many Johoreans struggling to get food’,” he had told the Public Accounts Committee then.
Based on the transcript, however, it is unclear if Ismail had mixed up the year or the bid amount as the ruler had made two exorbitant bids in both 2012 and 2014.
In 2012, Sultan Ibrahim won the “WWW1” car number with a bid of RM520,000. Two years later, he won the “W1N” registration number with a bid of RM748,000.
His Majesty also owns the number plate “F1”, which he won for RM836,660 in 2016.
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