The Myth of the Letter 'A' for Perak Vehicle Registration

There is a long-standing myth that the assignment of vehicle plate prefixes like A, B, C, and so on was determined by the ability of residents in a particular state to afford vehicles.

It is often claimed that the people of Perak were the first to be able to afford cars and that Perak recorded the highest number of vehicle ownership at that time. This is completely untrue! For your information, vehicle registration numbers in the state of Perak did not originally start with the letter A, but with the letters PK. The British Military Administration reorganized the vehicle registration system in 1945 by replacing the letters PK with A for Perak, B for Selangor, and others to avoid confusion between Singapore and Selangor, as well as to avoid confusion between Perak and Penang, which at the time used the letters PG, among others. Therefore, the claim circulating on the internet that vehicle registration numbers starting with A were based on the wealth of a state's residents is completely false. As mentioned earlier, vehicle registration numbers for Perak originally started with PK before being changed to A in 1945 solely to avoid confusion.

Wondering who was the first person to own the first vehicle registration number with the letter A, representing A1? His name was Claude Henry Labrooy, an architect and contractor in Ipoh, Perak at the time. However, we currently do not know who owns the A1 registration number. If you have any information, feel free to share it with other readers here.