{"id":228,"date":"2010-10-05T18:14:47","date_gmt":"2010-10-05T14:14:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/?p=228"},"modified":"2010-10-16T19:18:05","modified_gmt":"2010-10-16T15:18:05","slug":"how-the-number-9-car-plate-story-could-be-worth-more-than-the-aed-10m-paid-for-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/middle-east-society\/middle-east-culture-analysis\/how-the-number-9-car-plate-story-could-be-worth-more-than-the-aed-10m-paid-for-it\/","title":{"rendered":"The number \u20199? car plate could be worth much more than the 10m paid for it"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>So what would you do were 10 million dirhams to appear mysteriously in your bank account?\u00a0 Bag a \u2018bargain basement\u2019 luxury villa in Dubai now that property \u2018experts\u2019 tell us we\u2019re at the bottom of the market?\u00a0 Have a punt on the stock market or perhaps take a trip to the gold souq in anticipation of the financial Armageddon the world is facing according to other, ahem, \u2018experts\u2019.<\/p>\n

There is, however, an alternative to these prosaic investment options.\u00a0 Imagine the look on your family\u2019s face were you to gather them in the living room and say: \u2018I believe I\u2019ve made the best choice for all of our futures and here it is.\u00a0 Yes, your eyes do not deceive you, young Darren.\u00a0 It is indeed a car number plate.\u2019<\/p>\n

10 million dirhams is what Ahmad Ahli paid last Saturday at auction in Abu Dhabi for the number 9 plate.\u00a0 The plate itself came in a nice leather brief case. Very nice leather, I\u2019m sure.\u00a0 The interesting point, however, is that Mr Ahmad will not be attaching the expensive piece of tin to a finely engineered, performance car for which he will have paid a fraction of the cost of that gleaming number \u20189. No, he\u2019s in the investment business.<\/p>\n

There is, apparently, a\u00a0 lively secondary market in the low number plate business and Mr Ahmad hopes to turn a tidy profit from his investment.\u00a0 Given that he made a 3 million dirham profit on a recent purchase you\u2019d have to be optimistic for him.<\/p>\n

But what of the 10 million he paid at auction? Well that\u2019s going to a very worthy cause, namely the establishment of the Middle East\u2019s first rehabilitation centre for victims of car accidents.\u00a0 Ever since I read the story I\u2019ve had a nagging feeling, however.\u00a0 I\u2019ve no objection to people doing what they will with their cash and if that money goes to helping victims of the appalling accidents that happen daily on our roads so much the better.\u00a0 But couldn\u2019t we put a fraction of that money \u2013 say around 300,000 dirhams \u2013 towards a campaign to educate and help prevent accidents.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s how much the \u2018Embrace Life\u2019 video cost to make.\u00a0 It was originally intended to be viewed by a limited number of people living in Sussex in the UK but once released onto the internet the brief, poignant film has become a global sensation.\u00a0 It has been viewed by more than 11 million times on YouTube since January of this year.\u00a0 Have a look:<\/p>\n

[youtube]http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=h-8PBx7isoM[\/youtube]<\/p>\n

It\u2019s impossible to tell how many lives have been saved as a result of 11.5 million watching this. There must, though, be a good chance that there is at least one family in a similar position to that featured in the film as a result of viewing it.<\/p>\n

We could make thirty such films for 10 million dirhams but I think we\u2019d all settle for one similarly startling creative idea executed so professionally. What about a 300,000 dirham budget and a prize of 50,000 dirhams for the best idea. Well,\u00a0 Emirates Auction, what do you think?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

10 million dirhams was paid last Saturday at auction in Abu Dhabi for the number 9 plate, but its value could be much more if the cash was put to good use.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":235,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53,56],"tags":[202,197,191,18337,365],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}