It is the ultimate accessory for the corporate warrior with an ego as fat as his wallet – a car registration plate that reads CEO 1.

The plate goes on sale today with firms and bosses expected to bid as much as £100,000 for the number to adorn the car of a chief executive officer.

While it may not be quite as personalised as Paul Daniels’s MAG 1C or Sir Alan (Michael) Sugar’s AMS 1, the plate is bound to attract envy or scorn in the City.

The number and another, CEO 2, are being sold by Derek Clements, 61, a retired bank manager from Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, who is scaling down his collection of classic cars.

Clements acquired the registrations when he bought five classic cars from another collector 10 years ago. This collector had used the plates on an Aston Martin and a Ferrari, both from the 1960s, but Clements has transferred them to two Jaguar E-types, also from the 1960s.

He said he hoped to use the proceeds from the sale of the plates to “enjoy my retirement”.

He believes that the growing use of the title chief executive officer, which is often better understood internationally than the old term managing director, may help sell them.

Clements said: “Ten years ago the significance of CEO 1 was nothing really, other than being a local Barrow-in-Furness registration. I am being asked what I think they will go for and how much money I would like to make, but we will just have to wait and see” Markerle Davis, managing director of Cheap Number Plates, a Lancashire firm dealing in personalised number plates, said that CEO 1 could fetch £90,000 and CEO 2 £50,000. He said: “There are plates that have gone for considerably more. At the top end of the market it’s most certainly people in high kinds of positions and celebrities who are interested.”

The Driving and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) began selling number plates in 1989 as an extra source of money for the Treasury. Since then about £1 billion has been raised. The DVLA record is 51 NGH, which made £253,968 last year. The highest known price paid privately for a registration is £331,500 for M1, bought by a businessman for his six-year-old son at Bonhams last year.

Other plates have had higher values placed on them. Attempts have been made to sell the risqué plate FU2, once owned by Paul Raymond, the Soho porn baron, for as much as £1m.

The absolute gem, however, is A1. Earl Russell queued all night outside the vehicle registration office in London in 1903 to secure Britain’s first number plate. Russell Harrison, a property developer, had to settle for RU55 ELL, which he bought at a DVLA auction for £78,500.

Opinions among CEOs varied over the attraction of the registrations. Al Gosling, CEO of Extreme Group, a brand that includes hotels, drinks and holidays, said he would be prepared to spend £10,000 on CEO 1.

Sugar took a pragmatic view that someone might pay £100,000 for it. He said: “It sounds completely daft but I suppose it depends how much people want to pay for it.” Sugar acquired the registration AMS 1 long ago and placed it on his Rolls-Royce.

But he added: “The number plate was just a bit of fun . . . It’s 40 years old. I had it on my bloody minivan.”

P1ATES to 3NVY?

Plate - Price of sale - Year

M1 - £331,000 - 2006

51 NGH - £254,000 - 2006

K1 NGS - £235,000 - 1993

GS1- £220,000 - 2005

1A - £200,000 - 1989

1 OO - £197,000 - 2006

1F - £144,000 - 2005

S1 NGH - £108,000 - 1998

1RR - £106,000 - 1994

MR51 NGH - £101,000 - 2006

1S - £100,000 - 1998

G1 LLY - £87,000 - 1990

1MK - £83,000 - 2002

RU55 ELL - £78,000 - 2006

Source: DVLA/Bonhams