Armen Jakjakian has a personalized license plate of A 937 on his 2022 Ram Limited truck. On the surface it seems rather simple unless you know about its history, which is quite fascinating.
Armen, the owner of Speedy Auto Service Mississauga West and a contributor to The Car Magazine, is a native of Dubai who immigrated to Canada about six years ago.
He said back in the 60s and 70s the license plates in Dubai were strictly numeric. Because it was a new city and there weren’t a lot of cars, the plates began with the number 1 and continued all the way to three numbers for hundreds and then for four thousands.
Did it ever go to five numbers, six numbers, etc.
“Over the course of years as Dubai developed, that became a valuable vanity plate to have and went up in value significantly, because everybody wanted to have a one, two or three digit number,” Armen told me.
Armen’s uncle had a license plate with the number 937. When his brother passed, Armen’s father kept the plate as a memory. It was subsequently bequeathed to his wife, and when she passed Armen took possession and used it on his car.
“It essentially became my favourite number because I had a lot of personal memories attached to that license plate,” he said.
When Armen immigrated to Canada, he decided to sell the license plate. He publicly advertised it and was inundated with calls from people interested because of the limited number available of plates with three digits. Three or four days after he posted the ad, he received a “significant” five-figure offer.
When he bought a truck, he decided he wanted to have a plate with that number. He customized it to look exactly like the Dubai plate.
Perry Lefko is the Content Manager of The Car Magazine. He can be reached at [email protected]. Feel free to forward any story suggestions or comments.
