The Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur and the administrative capital of Putrajaya will get ‘V’ and ‘F’ prefixes on vehicles registered in July and June, respectively. According to a report carried in The Sun, deputy transport minister Datuk Aziz Kaprawi said the prefixes were selected after receiving a request from Putrajaya corporation.
Aziz said the ‘F’ prefix for Putrajaya will be issued on June 1, while the ‘V’ prefix for Kuala Lumpur will commence sometime after the Hari Raya holidays. This means that the current Wilayah Persekutuan number plate sequence of a prefix and suffix – introduced in September 2013 – will be defunct as of next month.
According to Aziz, the public were more comfortable with the traditional number plate sequence of a single prefix, versus a prefix and suffix numbering system. “This is based on massive decline in bidding for the current KL number plate sequence. So I hope with ‘V’, it will get people excited,” he said.
Commenting on the ‘F’ prefix for Putrajaya, Aziz said the ministry had received a request from Putrajaya Corporation for a “Putrajaya” prefix followed by a number sequence and alphabet suffix, but was rejected due to length. In this case, ‘F’ stands for federal. Aziz said he expected a lot of public interest in the new number plates, especially for the “F 1” Putrajaya plate.
“I think many Ferrari owners will be queuing up to bid for the single alphabet of ‘F’ (number plate),” said Aziz, in jest. The Road transport department (RTD) will announce the opening date for the new Putrajaya number plates next week.
“We will open the bidding tender probably for two weeks plus another two-week process for the special committee to finalise the bidding,” said RTD director-general Datuk Seri Ismail Ahmad.
The highest price ever paid for a regular Malaysian number plate was RM748,000 for ‘W1N’ by Sultan Ibrahim Ismail of Johor, who also paid RM520,000 for ‘WWW 1’ in 2012. The buyer of the special ‘PATRIOT 1’ plate paid a reported RM1,308,000 for the honour.
