A man in the UAE secured the “1” number plate at an auction on Saturday after bidding a ridiculous $4.9 million. The winning bidder was Arif Ahmad Al Zarouni, who said that he was willing to purchase the special plate at any cost. “I attended the license plate auction only to win number one,” he said. “My ambition is always to be number one.”
As you can imagine, the bidding war was rather feisty with the opening bid of Dh1 million escalating to the closing figure of Dh18 million within minutes. There were 1,340 registered bidders at the auction and some other special plates that found new owners were “12”,”777″,”911″ and “99999”. This “1” plate was for the state of Sharjah but the most expensive plate in the world is “1” belonging to Abu Dhabi which was sold for $14.5 million in 2008.