The Department of Land Transport expects to earn at least 300 million baht from its auction of 82 auspiciously numbered vehicle registration plates, according to director-general Chirute Visalachitra.
The first round of auction sales of plates for personal cars on Thursday drew 287 bidders, while another 308 joined via its tabienrod.com website, Mr Chirute said on Friday.
It is the first time personal vehicle owners have been allowed to bid for special plates, with each comprising a mix of Thai letters, tone marks and numbers not exceeding seven characters.
The department originally planned to auction off 84 plates but was surprised that no one had put down a security deposit or registered a preference.
Then the system operating the auction crashed yesterday, meaning only 63 plates were sold. Another round for the remaining 19 has been set for April 22.
Characters in the top five mostly represented money and beauty. For example, “Ror Wor Yor” reads like ruai, which means to flaunt one’s wealth; “Sor Wor Yor” reads as suai, close to the word for beautiful; and another plate referenced the word sethi or millionaire.
The most expensive plate, “Ror Wor Yor 9999”, sold for 18.5 million baht. It was followed by “Sethi 1” (15.4 million), “Sor Wor Yor 1” (13 million), “Sethi 8” (12.6 million) and “Ror Wor Yor 8888” (11.1 million baht).
All 63 plates sold for 282 million baht. The other 19 may fetch 20-30 million baht, the department believes.
Proceeds from the sales will go to support the Road Safety Fund.
