The popularity of personalised car number plates has declined since their introduction 35 years ago, with fewer than 5% of vehicles now displaying them, ORF has reported.

There was widespread discontent when modern white number plates replaced the traditional black ones in autumn 1989.

Even the artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser, renowned for Vienna’s Hundertwasserhaus with its colourful and disproportionate facade, weighed in on the debate, opposing the white number plates. “Austria would lose some of its independence, elegance, tradition, and specific culture,” Hundertwasser explained in an interview with ORF at the time.

To calm the agitated public, the federal government eventually introduced personalised number plates. For a fee of 2,300 schillings (equivalent to €228 today), drivers could choose their own alphanumeric combinations. Anything deemed aesthetically pleasing was allowed, except for codes considered far-right or vulgar.

In the 1990s, one in ten number plates applied for was a personalised one. However, according to the Ministry of Transport, fewer than five percent of vehicles now bear self-chosen combinations.

In contrast, locality codes have gained in significance, with two municipalities in Styria currently striving for their own registration plates.

Klosterneuburg has already won this battle. When the former district of Vienna Surroundings (registration code “WU”) was dissolved at the beginning of 2017 and the 21 municipalities were integrated into neighbouring districts, Klosterneuburg was allocated the registration code “TU” of its new district, Tulln.

More than 4,000 signatures were successfully gathered by Klosterneuburg’s residents for their own “KG” registration plate, which was officially introduced in April 2020. Today, numerous “KG”, “TU”, and even old “WU” plates coexist side by side.