There’s nothing like war. In Ukraine, record demand for luxury cars and proprietary registration numbers

During the current war, the demand for premium cars and individual registration numbers in Ukraine is at record highs. One of the main groups of buyers in recent months has been government officials, the Ukrainska Pravda portal reported on Tuesday.

In the article entitled “James Bonds of our times” Ukrainska Pravda quoted data regarding record demand. As emphasized in the publication, its title comes from the fact that the combination of digits 0007 is a hit among registration numbers.

“During war, Ukrainians want to move elegantly. With the increasing demand for luxury cars, license plates VIP have become an attribute of prestige,” the portal noted.

Data from Ukrainian institutions indicate that in August and October 2023, over 800 imported (new or used) cars with individual VIP license plates were registered. The most popular are those containing a combination of four identical digits, among which is the undisputed leader 7777. Nearly a thousand cars registered in the last five years currently drive with such license plates.

Custom license plates cost money. When registering a vehicle, all documents related to obtaining a regular plate will cost up to 600 hryvnia (about PLN 67). If the owner wants to have registration marks with four identical digits, he officially has to pay PLN 30,000. hryvnias (approximately PLN 3.4 thousand). You have to spend the same amount for combinations of numbers from 0001 to 0009.

However, obtaining such numbers is not always easy. For a long time, the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs did not officially offer tables with possible combinations, withholding the most desirable combinations in order to create artificial demand. This resulted in intermediaries offering “prestigious” license plates for PLN 3,000-4,000. dollars. In 2019, the value of the black market for trade in license plates was estimated at UAH 100 million (approximately PLN 11.2 million).

At the end of 2021, the Ministry of the Interior put an end to this practice by launching an online system for checking available license plates in real time. In 2023, there will be a demand for registrations VIP is the highest in history, despite new car sales halving compared to 2021.

The most popular license plates in 2023 include combinations with sevens, including “0007”. “Apparently their owners identify with James Bond. (…) From January to October, 145 such cases were registered in Ukraine agents, i.e. by 150 percent. more than in the same period of 2021,” noted Ukrainska Pravda.

The second most popular number is 9999 (123 sets of plates issued compared to 80 in 2021). Combinations such as 7777, 0001, 8888 are also popular.

Ukrainska Pravda also pointed out that although sales of new cars in Ukraine have decreased, the demand for premium cars has increased. The most frequently purchased car is currently the BMW X, which in its simplest version costs UAH 4 million (approximately PLN 460,000).

Many journalistic investigations have shown that luxury cars have often been bought by state officials and their relatives in recent months – we read in Ukrainska Pravda. The authors of the publication suggested that this was probably due to the fact that officials limited their purchases of luxury goods in previous years because they had to submit asset declarations until last year. This obligation was then abolished and then reinstated in October 2023.

As Ukrainian media have noted in recent months, many data indicate that the level of corruption is currently the highest since Ukraine proclaimed independence in 1991.

Source: PAP