M. T. wrote
>Frank Elson explained it best in a few emails between Dec 2000 and May 2001.
Yes, I have those, and they are what prompted my question because there are
so many changes, inconsistencies, and complications of suffix and prefix,
that I cannot imagine an ordinary person making sense of it all.
That said, I suppose that most people would know the letter codes for the
current and immediate previous years and also the next one or two
letters. If so, then it would be easy to keep an eye on the neighbors to
see how old their vehicle is.
In North America every Car For Sale advertisement contains the year of
manufacture. Some people have the ability to recognize the year of
manufacture just by looking at the styling. I cannot do this and be right
within two decades but my wife can do it effortlessly. I suspect that
school kids can do it as well. In the salt-on-the-roads provinces and
states the problem becomes even simpler because vehicles fall apart quite
quickly. But here in almost salt free Alberta it is not unusual to see 30
year old vehicles on the road, not counting Land-Rovers of course.
I guess that for those people in Britain who are terribly hung up on having
the latest model year the British system of publicly proclaiming how new
the vehicle is with a letter on the licence plate must be a real spur to
keeping up with the Joneses. It's a wonder that the North American
manufacturers haven't cottoned to the idea and lobbied for changes to the
licensing laws.
But I have to say that Keith's example of Colorado takes the prize. 87
different styles of plate. That is truly impressive. It's a wonder the
state simply doesn't just allow people to make their own plates. How in
blazes do the Colorado State police know that somebody hasn't done just
that, whipped up a plate design and number on their computer and Crazy
Glued it in place?
Which reminds me. Several years ago I learned that in Ontario there were
several different types of plates available to owners who could prove they
were in certain occupations. These were plates meant for private vehicles
and not cars supplied for business. Doctors of course could get an MD
something or other plate but for whatever reason few ever took up the
offer. Dentists didn't get a plate but Funeral Directors (Six-Feet Under
Specialists) could. The one that really got me though was a special plate
available only for federal income tax collectors. Who in their right mind
would drive around with something that proclaimed to the whole world that
they were a bastard offshoot of Genghis Khan's Golden Horde?
One more thing, sorry to digress, but licence plates can also be the
difference between life and death. When Yugoslavia went bi-polar the
country ended up as a bizarre collection of petty fiefdoms divided along
Croat, Serbian, Muslim, and various combinations of all three. Licence
plates in that part of the world proclaim just exactly were you live. This
could mean big and perhaps fatal trouble to say, a Croat Muslim traveling
across Bosnian Serb territory, to get to Herzegovinan mobster land, or a
Serb crossing Bosnia, Croat and Muslim, to get to Albania.
And despite the chaos of civil war there was never any shortage of people
to man roadblocks to check things like papers and licence plates.
The answer turned out to be an impressive trade in fake licence plates and
papers, quick release licence plate bolts, and an uncanny knack on the part
of drivers to know when they might be entering a territory that needed a
licence plate change. Bribe money was also important of course.
Rick Grant
1959 SII 88"
VORIZO
Calgary Alberta
www.rickgrant.com
_______________________________________________
LRO mailing list
LRO@land-rover.team.net
http://land-rover.team.net/mailman/listinfo/lro
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Tue Mar 04 2003 - 02:07:43 EST