DVLA Personalised Registrations’ final three-day auction of 2011 raised more than £2.8 million, taking the total amount generated from auction sales this year to a staggering £16 million.

The registration 14 O was the sale’s biggest seller, bought by an Essex-based businessman who wanted to remain anonymous for a total of £40,256 - double the amount a mystery buyer paid for AL11 SON, the sale’s second highest earning registration.

Damian Lawson, DVLA Personalised Registrations’ marketing manager, said: “This, our final sale of the year, has been another positive one for the DVLA and its success will help take the total amount raised from auction sales in 2011 to more than £16 million.”

In total, since the sale of personalised registrations begun in September 1989, more than £1.7 billion has been raised with all the money generated going to the Treasury.