If Penang plates start with P and Terengganu plates start with T then why are Perak License Plates given an A?
Well the first car to ever be registered in Malaysia was registered in Perak.
It is reported that prior to this, vehicles in the state bore ‘PK’ number plates.
The change from ‘PK’ to ‘A’ came after the British Military Administration restarted the system that year as they did not want to be confused with number plates from Singapore, Selangor, Perak, and Penang.
Interestingly, British architect Claude Henry Labrooy had the ‘A1’ number plate due to his extensive contribution to Ipoh’s development.
Now, why did Selangor have license plates that start with B? Well, you guessed it, they were the second state to actively register new vehicles.
Then came Pahang who got C and Kelantan who received… the D.
Here’s the full list of letters according to each state:
A: Perak
B: Selangor
C: Pahang
D: Kelantan
F: Putrajaya
J: Johor
K: Kedah
M: Melaka
N: Negeri Sembilan
P: Penang
R: Perlis
T: Terengganu
V: Kuala Lumpur
W: Kuala Lumpur
Of course, there are also fun numbers that were introduced by the Road Transportation Department like FF8 that was sold for RM950,000 in 2023.
To this day, no one really knows why that number in particular fetched such a high price.
The prefix ‘Z’ is reserved for the military, and the prefix ‘H’ is reserved for taxis.
Some letters are excluded from the number plates, such as ‘I’ and ‘O’, due to their similarity to the shapes of numbers.
One final fun fact about Ipoh before you go.
It is the first state in the history of Malaysia to receive a traffic light. The original location for the traffic light has now been turned into a roundabout.
They’re also one of the first states to have metered parking in Malaysia.
