VW Beetle fan Karen Cork from Eltham, London, bought the 800,000th personalised number plate to be sold by the DVLA's Sale of Marks scheme and helped take the revenue it has generated past the £400m mark.

Karen, who currently drives a 30-year-old VW Beetle, bought the mark, V666 BUG through DVLA's Select Registrations telesales line for £399 and plans to put it on a brand new Beetle she has ordered for January 2000.

Karen said: "I love Beetles and the bug plate will really give my new car the perfect finish. I'm sure it will attract a lot of comments when I take it to Beetle meets."

Byron Roberts, marketing manager for DVLA Sale of Marks, commented: "Sales of our personalised numbers have kept growing and we now sell more than 100,000 each year.

"As soon as VW introduced the new Beetle we saw a big increase in the sale of BUG registration numbers. I think people see the Beetle as a fun car and the BUG plates are a good way of expressing this."

DVLA sells personalised numbers through two schemes: Classic Collection auctions - where a relatively small number of prestige marks are sold at sales around the country; and Select Registrations - a low cost scheme that offers around 7.5 million possible number plate combinations for sale through a telesales line.

The sales revenue raised by the DVLA Sale of Marks scheme goes to the Treasury.

Drivers will be able to check the price and availability of their favourite numbers at the DVLA's Sale of Marks stand at the London Motor Show. They can be found on stand B8.

Story date: Thursday 21 October

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.