yes, the UK _is_ obsessed with the age of it's cars...!!
Frank will correct me, I'm sure, but here's an amateurs take on
proceedings....
Initially there were plates with three letters followed by three numbers. I
think it was the last two of the leters showed the registration town, so the
Police could, at a glance, tell where the car was from. Pretty rapidly they
ran out of numbers ( well, by the late fifties anyway) so introduced an
extra letter at the end that indicated year.
So you get ABC123A. This was purely and simply to chop up the numbering
sequence and allow for expansion AFAIK. However, At the time, our car
industry was, and still is, fairly slow on model updates, so the same
looking car was produced for a number of years. I gather that Detroit at
the time was introducing different models yearly.... The only way to pull a
bit of one-up-manship was to have the same looking car but with the latest
plate for the year, introduced on the first of August every year.
Consequently car sales were low for the preceding few months then peaked
madly on that day. Garages opened at midnight for people to collect their
new cars and have them on the drive for the morning to go to work in and
park in the carpark.... In typical British fashion you didn't make a fuss
about a new car, just let everyone notice the plate......
Certain letters are not used as they look like numbers, Ie I Q and O, V not
U etc so they ran out after around twenty years. Then the system was
reversed so we had A123ABC. Same old system again certain numbers indicated
the area of registering, the 1st letter was the year numbers were arbitrary
AFAIK. This happened in the early 80s.
Yet again they ran out of letters, but wanted to introduce a whole new
system so the last few years were doubled up new letters appearing in March
as well as August. Started at S IIRC so the late 90s had years of ST then
VW, etc.
Now we have AA 01ABC, where AA is the registering town indicator, 01 is the
year and the ABC is the random bit. Just to ad a certain frisson to the
proceedings the 01 can also be 51 02/52 03/53 indicating August or March
respectively, 01 was August, 51 was the following March, O2 was the
following August etc etc etc......
Add in the Q suffix meaning a kitcar or bitsa, all the messing with spaces
to make anity plates ie V 8 LRO etc etc A 110 LWB or whatever and it can get
really silly!!
IIRC Franks lists were of the year suffixs and registration towns, so in
theory you can find when and where your vehicle was 1st registered. However
the introduction of the system back in the 60s was irregular and
inconsistent across the counties so doesn't tie in properly...
Clear as mud!!
PhilN
----- Original Message -----
From: "Keith Tanner" <keith@miata.net>
To: <lro@koan.team.net>
Sent: 04 March 2003 04:04
Subject: Re: [lro] OT - British Registration Letters
>
> I'm only aware, of course, of Colorado and Ontario because I've lived
> there. You can actually get a Star Trek plate in Ontario now, but at least
> it still LOOKS like an Ontario plate. You can also get your amateur radio
> call sign as a plate for no extra charge - those who have been to my
> website might have noticed VE3BBI plates on my Miata. The idea is that
hams
> are useful people to identify in an emergency. I'm not sure exactly what
> circumstances would require easy identification of Trekkies.
>
> Colorado vanity plates actually look homemade. They're not stamped. Go
figure.
>
> Germany has a prefix that indicates the city of registration. France uses
> the postal area, of all things...
>
> Keith
> ------------
> Keith's page de home:
> http://keith.miata.net
> ------------
> _______________________________________________
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> LRO@land-rover.team.net
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