Why don't Guernsey cars have letters on their number plates?

• Kate Prout looks into Guernsey's unique number plates

Yellow and white with a combination of letters and numbers - that is the image that springs to mind for most people when thinking of a vehicle registration plate.

Unless you live on the Channel Island of Guernsey - where number plates are black, and have no letters at all.

Number plates have been compulsory on the island since 1908, and Guernsey's Traffic and Highways Service says local plates will never have letters on them.

Vehicle registrations on the neighbouring island of Jersey all start with a 'J' while Alderney uses 'AY', and in the UK they are based on a vehicle's age and location it was first registered.

The States of Guernsey defines a 'special' plate as one that has five consecutive numbers, fewer than five numbers that have a pair of numbers in it or are the same when read backwards as forwards.

Garage owner Andre Whiteway enjoys collecting the plates. He owns about 20:

"My grandfather, back in the day, he had a Ford Prefect with the number 69 on it," said Andy.

"Ever since then, I never got that number, but I've always wanted some nice numbers."

The number plates can sell for a lot of money, a Guernsey plate with three numbers could go for up to £15,000.

The most expensive sale so far is number plate 007, which sold for about £240,000 at a location auction seven years ago. It's still apparently attached to an Aston Martin on the island.

Auctioneer Nicky Renny said: "Sequences of eights are very popular, particularly people from Asia where eight is an auspicious number.

"We get [high bids] where numbers just look good aesthetically, look attractive, for example, a series of the number one in a row - like 8117. It just looks tidier and neater than other random numbers."

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