There is a maxim in business that a thing is worth whatever someone is prepared to pay for it. By that reckoning, Afzal Kahn is onto a winner.
He is the owner of the registration number F1. He bought it in January last year and has already turned down an offer of £5m. But, with the numberplate on display at the MPH show in London - complete with the car it is attached to, his white Bugatti Veyron - there is now a chance he might relinquish it. "Everything has a price," he says. "I would let it go for £10m [including the Veyron]."
It may seem a little steep, but then Kahn is hardly desperate for cash. The 38-year-old from Bradford is a self-made millionaire after setting up a car tuning and customisation company, Kahn Design, 11 years ago. It has franchises around the world, and dealerships as far-flung as China and Russia, but the heart of the business is the Kahn Laboratory - a purpose-built workspace and showroom in Bradford.
To buy the plate took Kahn eight years of negotiations with Essex county council, which had owned it since 1904. It cost him £375,000 plus Vat. "I don't really follow Formula One," he admits. "I bought the plate for an investment."
Although the businessman owns a Rolls-Royce Phantom as well as the Veyron and other cars, the plate is his most memorable acquisition. "Buying the numberplate was actually more exciting than buying the Bugatti," Kahn admits. "As amazing a machine as the Veyron is, it is not exclusive. By that I mean there is more than one in existence. The F1 plate is truly one of a kind. If there was a fire and I had to choose between F1 and the Veyron, I'd grab the F1 certificate."
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If anyone were prepared to pay £10m for the plate, what would Kahn spend the money on? "I want to set up a low-volume luxury British car company," he says. "I have already started designing something quintessentially British and, like Kahn Design, I want to support and use as much British industry and engineering as possible. That is my dream, and it will happen. In the next three years."