DVLA Personalised Registrations is edging ever closer to its first sell-out success after all but three of the 1,500 registrations auctioned during its first sale of the year were sold during three days of frantic bidding.

For the third successive live auction the Agency recorded a 99 per cent-plus sales conversion while last month’s event staged at the Tankersley Manor Hotel near Barnsley became the DVLA’s second in succession to raise more than £5.3 million in total.

With a hammer price of £46,500, 675 LTS became the event’s highest-selling personalised registration. The much talked about 1 SUV – perfect for the sports utility vehicle market – was its second highest seller when it was bought by the family-owned SUV specialist dealers, Saxton 4×4 of Chelmsford, Essex, for £46,200.

A company spokesman, said: “We’re one of the largest SUV car dealerships in the country so when we were notified 1 SUV was being auctioned, we just knew we had to have it – it’s the perfect marketing tool for our business which is why it will be placed straight onto one of the last ever Land Rover Defenders ever made.”

With a record 10,440 registered bidders signed up for the first auction of the year, it appears the record-breaking success of 2015 has continued. Adam Griffiths, of DVLA Personalised Registrations, said: “Last year was our most successful since the Agency started selling personalised registrations in 1989 and it appears that success is continuing. To auction all but three registrations is nothing short of remarkable but, in truth, is a direct reflection of the popularity that personalised registrations has become to the British motorist.”