A TYCOON’S partner got a new £500,000 Ferrari, with a reg plate costing five times more.
Peter Waddell, 58, wanted to get a special New Year’s gift for Gabby Nita, 40, who already had a fleet of supercars.
The VIP1 plate was once owned by Chelsea’s former owner, billionaire Roman Abramovich and was even used on Pope John Paul II’s ‘Popemobile’
Car company boss Peter, who is worth £500million, said: “Gabby already had a Ferrari as one of her cars, but she absolutely loves the Ferraris and had her eyes set on the new Purosangue model.
“Then I wondered what special plate I could add to it. ‘VIP1’ was perfect – she thinks she’s a queen anyway.”
Peter, 58, is coy about what he paid for the plate but says it is worth “well north of £2million”.
Abramovich bought the reg for nearly £300,000 in 2006 and the ultra-wealthy have since driven the global registration plate market sky high.
The number plate ‘1’, owned by a Middle East tycoon, is valued at £7.2m.
Peter and Gabby, 40, already have a portfolio of exotic plates for their luxury car collection worth over £5million.
Even their seven-year-old son, Peter, owns a classic £130k Ferrari with the plate ‘25 PW’, which father and son drive around the family’s 49-acre estate in Bromley, Kent.
VIP1 was first owned by Kilkenny businessman Bill Finnegan in the 1970s who put it on a Jaguar XJ6.
A replica of the number plate was used on the ‘Popemobile’ for the visit of Pope John Paul II to Ireland in 1979.
Finnegan moved to London to work for Gulf Oil but when he tried to change cars a few years later he was told he could not swap the Irish number plate onto a British car.
So he sold his Jag with the VIP1 numberplate for £5,500 only to see it sold at auction for £92,000 in 1989. Roman Abramovic bought it for £286,000 in 2006.
