The lowest Zurich car number auctioned to date brought Zurich record profits.
Security director Mario Fehr poses with the car number ZH 100.
ZH 100 narrowly missed the record. For 226,000 francs, Zurich’s deepest license plate so far came under the virtual hammer on Wednesday evening. The user “mistermh” was willing to pay that much. At CHF 233,000, ZG 10 remains the most expensive Swiss number plate.
After all, the Zurich record (194,400 francs) was broken, and a large amount flows into the state coffers. This is actually a worthless piece of tin: unlike in other cantons, a license plate in Zurich cannot be resold, but only passed on within close family.
Since last Thursday, the website of the Zurich Road Traffic Office has been able to bid for ZH 100. The initial bid of 4,000 francs was quickly shattered: the 100,000 franc mark had already been broken by midday, and 200,000 francs shortly before midnight. After that, things became much quieter: while 337 bids were received on the first day, there were 46 on day 2. On the third day, no bids were received at all. Interest picked up again slightly towards the end of the auction on Wednesday evening.
On Friday evening, the news circulated that the Swiss record had been broken – the highest bid was already CHF 350,000. However, this turned out to be false news. People who did not have the necessary credit rating bid at the auction, as the “Züri Today” platform made public.
Severin Toberer, spokesman for the Road Traffic Office, describes the episode as follows: “On Friday evening there were a lot of bids from people who obviously did not have the necessary financial resources. We reacted quickly, interrupted the auction and blocked the affected bidders. The auction has been running again since Saturday morning.”
According to “Blick”, bidders received phone calls from the road traffic office on Friday. But the question arises as to how the creditworthiness of dozens of other bidders can be clarified in such a short space of time – with amounts that are within the scope of a (low) mortgage. The road traffic office keeps a low profile regarding the details, but it is obvious that only rough clarifications are possible.
The Office refers to the recently updated general terms and conditions. It states that the road traffic office can request credit card details, another proof of creditworthiness or the prior payment of a deposit from the registered persons and can exclude persons whose creditworthiness is in question.
After the award, the road traffic office will send you an invoice. This must be paid within 30 days. If no payment is made within the deadline, “the road traffic office reserves the right to demand the amount owed through legal action and to pass the costs incurred on to the highest bidder”. In the event of non-payment, the highest bidder will be excluded from further license plate auctions.
When asked, the road traffic office does not answer how often it happens that the auction winner does not transfer the amount. It also leaves open whether the auction will be repeated in this case. “The auction is running reliably,” is the reply.
At the previous prominent auctions of deep number plates, however, repetitions were not an issue – the highest bidders picked up their expensive metal crown jewels without hesitation.