It’s great to see someone who is clearly born after the year 2000 taking an interest in British heritage, I’ve been accused of being a number plate nerd but I didn’t know everything you shared so thank you for teaching an old petrol head some new information!
You forgot one British plate oddity. You use the same car plate in the back of your trailer. Most of the other world have different plates and registration for trailers.
When I was a youngster back in 1972 it was possible to reserve a number prior to it being issued. I was living in London then and the London codes at that time were JD. I was able to reserve PJD (my initials) followed 2L, L being the year, 1972. Unfortunately someone had already blagged the number 1. I was very proud of that plate which I had on a BSA motorcycle. This was in the days before personalised number plates became a huge financial business.
@@des_smith7658 Yes Mate, London Transport reserved the SLT for the four prototypes, ,SLT 56 to SLT 59 for the first four, then VLT, WLT, CLT(reversed along with DYE, ie 776 DYE, RM 1776) then ALD and ALM with a B suffix, then CUV with a C, then NML on an E, and finally SMK 760F,( RML 2760), but never beat the 7000 odd RT Family Buses built during, and after the War, exotic letters like EYK FJJ, FXT, HLX, KYY, LLU,NXP, and OLD for the very last RT. (may have left some out,) Many Municipal Vehicles also reserved blocks of Registrations, I remember many London Borough of Haringey Dustcarts registered HUL***K.
I remember that the AA (Automobile Association) used to issue a yearly handbook with useful information for the motorist. At the back was a listing of all the two-letter district codes.
I remember that, it also had the International letter codes used on stickers displayed when travelling outside the vehicles country of registration eg F D NL etc
I have that very same handbook,here in Cork,Ireland. Back then,the whole island of Ireland were part of the British reg number system,using letters Z and I. Ireland stopped using this system in 1986 when the numbers began running out. It made for some interesting reg lettering, such as DIE, RIP, DIP, TIC, DIM, etc
If anyone remembers I-Spy books (a very British thing for kids) they did a car registration spotters book that you could tick off the area letters (last two of the three letter group) on the old style system. When I was growing up we didn't venture too far so spotting opportunities were fairly limited plus I lived in a rural area in Wales so seeing cars from the rest of the country was rare.
You can also transfer a plate onto another car you own, or can gift it, so long as it does not make the car appear newer than it is. For example my dad bought a car in the early 1960s with an old Surrey plate of 4 numbers + 2 letters. This got transferred onto every car he subsequently owned and not long after his passing when my mum stopped driving she gifted it to me and its now on a 2014 car
@@Duckymack-72 - As you say "it must have changed" - Well, the only example I know of. My Dad bought a 1958 Standard.10 in Dec'1965 & my Mother took me to school in it, inevitably. I drove her home as an M.o.T failure in 1990 & my Dad just wanted rid of, sadly - But I urged him NOT to sell to my mate's dickhead friend - Not before "saving" the quality numberplate - (Read on...) Took months & NO VALID M.o.T (which was reason he was selling it : Failure list as long as your arm) Went from 1958 Standard Ten, to a 1979 Mini Clubman (in 1990), until 2011 & then when Dad sold the little Mini Clubman over on E-Bay, he later had it transferred over to one of his two K.11 Nissan Micra's We still have that 'flash' number-plate today - It's part of the family & I've turned it down, twice !! At NO STAGE in proceedings did either previous car have a valid M.o.T, or ANY M.o.T whatsoever. He did hold it "on a retainer" as it was said, until he purchased the older, but better Micra (of two)
Thanks for clarifying about the Northern Ireland situation 😅 Over here we have 3 letters then a space and then 4 numbers, plates have to have either a I or Z (or can have both), with most ending in Z. The second two letters act as a locator, although it isn't as easy to know where the car was registered though, for example the current Belfast code ends in -MZ and Ballymena ends in -RZ. The first letter tells you roughly the date the car was registered, and cycles through alphabetically, for example Belfast currently it is G (GMZ), but unlike the GB system where the date identifier every half year, the NI system changes when they run out of serial numbers (last 4 numbers) for that area. So the identifier for cars in Belfast changes the most because most cars are registered there. When they run out of first letters, they then advance the second letter, but again there is no system to this it is just what hasn't been used yet or cannot be used, for example Belfast used -GZ but now uses -MZ, they skipped the other letters in between because they have recently been used by other areas (HZ for Tyrone, JZ for Down etc) except IZ which cannot be used (maybe because I and Z can't be beside each other). **Upon research I have found that the areas have actually cycled through the second 2 letters, in fact belfast has cycled through their 12 codes about 2.75 times since 1904 a Z for the identifier is only ever the 3rd letter, but an I can be used as the identifier for either the first, second or third letter. The last 4 digits are numbers and are serial numbers. Like the rest of the UK, the NI plates also had an optional GB identifier (ironic since NI is not part of GB) and the GB identifier was changed to UK partly to be more inclusive of NI
It was always cool to be able to choose your number plate from a selection in a book assigned to the dealership when purchasing a brand new car. It’s a shame you still can’t do this!
The closest I got was when I bought a new Chevy Aveo in 2008. The dealer had 4 or 5 identical pre-reg'd cars with 20-30 miles on the clock so I got to choose my plate. I went with DKO so I could call the car Dicko.
In 1979 when I was 17 I bought a brand new motorbike and when ordering it from the dealer they presented me with a book with a list of available number plates to choose from.
Utterly fascinating, informative, beautifully scripted and beautifully edited video. Amazing work! Some really interesting tidbits in there I had no idea about!
Really loved that, thank you! Would welcome a follow up on some of the quirks, the fact you can buy a personalised plate within set rules, transfers between cars, age related plates on classic cars (all the stuff you hate!) Etc. I was once able to persuade DVLA to put R771AHD into an auction which I wanted because I had AH771R on my classic
I'd wondered what the British system was, only to find out there were multiple systems. I'd heard presenters talking about "K" plates or "M" plates, but had no idea what they were talking about. I'm more informed now, but still just as confused. Thanks for trying.
Great video. The old system of area identifying letters was generally codes rather than abbreviations, many areas and Cities were very proud of their codes, JN for Southend on Sea, DL for the Isle of Wight, and many others, it was all there for us kids, listed in Dad's AA Members' Handbook, hours of fun out on the road spotting vehicles from different places.
Can relate to that.....here in Oxford originally we had FC/JO/WL [City of Oxford] also BW/UD [County of Oxfordshire] until 1974. Then all came under Oxford until 2001....my last old style Oxford registration plate being V957 VFC on a '99 Rover 214🙂
In our case it was Dad's RAC Members' Handbook, and 60 years on I can still remember many of the location codes from those days. I agree with you about pride in areas' codes and recall how excited my mum got when, on the annual 500 hundred mile trip back to her home in the far north of Scotland, we would see the first smattering of "SK" registrations!
thanks Ed. I've saved this one to watch a few times over. being a child of the 60s and 70s the letter prefix and suffix systems were instinctive. when they changed to the modern system with 2 registrations per year the vehicle age now takes some pondering. maybe after a few more watches it might become easier.
Very clear explanation, thank you. As a classic car enthusiast, I've had to go through the explanation many times. Now I can just point them to your video.😁 One additional thing perhaps worth mentioning is the proliferation of "cherished" or "vanity" number plates. These number plates will comply with the rules that you explained (and will be correct for one of the rule sets mentioned) but they will not necessarily reflect anything to do with the age or original registration location of the vehicle. People usually choose such plates because they have letter/number combinations that mean things to them (such as perhaps spelling out their name). I don't know how it is in the rest of the country, but such number plates are really quite common in the area where I live. So, gleaning information about a car from its displayed number plate is a bit hit-or-miss around here.
Thank you from Australia. With an interest in steam machinery and seeing registration plates on traction engines, steam rollers and steam trucks some of this starts to makes sense. (It would have been nice if you talked more about the system from 1903, but the more recent stuff is more relevant to most viewers.) Watching a UK rebuild YT channel it starts to make a lot more sense.
The area codes did start with a system in 1903, but it soon had to be supplemented in more populous areas, so became diluted - it was done by population size, so London was A, Lancashire was B, Yorkshire was C, etc. The area codes for Ireland in 1903 (then part of the UK) had combinations with an I or a Z in them, and were assigned alphabetically by county name - IA was Antrim, IB was Armagh, IC was Carlow, ID was Cavan, etc. When Ireland split into Northern Ireland and The Republic of Ireland in 1922, the 1903 system in the Republic's counties continued until 1987, when it was replaced by a different system, rather than adding a suffix as GB did in 1963. The original dateless, county-based system continues in Northern Ireland today.
Yes the I for Ireland did give scope for initials, which were eye catching. The very first episode of a well liked rural crime series set in rural England, had an undertaker using a Hearse with the Reg Plate RIP 1 (IP Being the old index for County Kilkenny) were old Irish Plates allowed to be transferred to Great Britain?. If you reverse IP to PI if the number after it was 3414 then that was the constant pi, or PI 2217 with a slightly slanted 1 gave the same result (PI being the old Reg index. for Cork City) Very enjoyable subject.
@@KieranWyse yes they could and I believe still can be transferred to GB and indeed many of the most expensive cherished numbers originated in what is now the Republic of Ireland, VIP 1 etc. being an obvious example. Unfortunately it was never allowed to transfer plates on vehicles within the RoI so these numbers effectively died when they vehicle they were fitted to was taken off the road. I think Ireland misses a trick and cheriched/vanity number plates would be a nice little earner but it's just never been a thing, even when many "nice" plates were around under the 1904 system. The current Irish system is as dull as ditchwater and makes the year of registration so obvious as to devalue vehicles needlessly.
@@murphaph The old System in Ireland (ROI) was never allocated the following letters in 1903/04 G, S & V. Eventually, and because combinations were being used up these three letters were allocated to Co.Limerick for V, thus IV AIV, BIV etc. G for Dublin ZG, along with S, ZS etc. S was also allocated to Co. Mayo, thus IS AIS etc. GI for the South Riding of Co.Tipperary. The Prefix ZZ equals Q, temporary Imports, and is still used today. The new system was and still is what the motor trade likes, and second hand car buyers. It does not as you say inspire any scope for a selection of cherished numbers or indices. As far as I know you can reserve a particular number, and pay extra to the registration authorities. This new system also allowed the importation of second hand vehicles, mainly from the U.K. Of course the old UK plate had to be replaced with an Irish one, and post 1987 with these imports, a new plate was allocated. Thus if the UK vehicle was registered before 1987 the new plate showed the year of first registration e.g. 1985 would be 85 XX NNNN. Complex I know but you can spot the year of registration straight away. I have seen the following plates 29 KY 1- 1929, Owner lived in Co. Kerry and the index 1 indicated the first for that year imported. 58 C 1- 1958 County of Cork, this is a short wheeled base Land Rover. I have not seen any index above 1 for these years.
Loved spotting registrations as a kid. Especially during the school holidays when the new plate would come out. I always tried to see how quickly I could see one. My personal record is 3 day before registration day: July 28th (P reg, 1996). One of my first cars was a 1979 3.0S Capri running black plates. Originally issued with the white/yellow combination.
True, and for some serious money in many cases of course , coincidentally a purely curiosity related search a few days ago shows my 3 initials with a single number 1 available at £ 80k!
Very well explained. I love the UK system, as complicated as it is, as fascinating it is. For comparison here in Germany (as in most EU countries) plates are re-issued after use. And they are re-issued often as every time a car changes owner or region it needs a new reg plate. This keeps the reg plates themselves simple, but leads to problems ever again. i.e. I twice had issues with insurance claims and a speeding ticked from the car that used my plate before. As well it is close to impossible to see age and history of a car. For the UK plates something interesting (but very complicated) is forgotten. 0:38 “Northern Irish plates are different, so this is about Great British plates”. And later, the area codes pre 2001 seem random. Well, when the first reg plates were issued, they were 2 letters and up to 4 numbers with the first 2 letters being the area code. And this went as simple as first issued was AA, then AB, AC, etc. Once an area reached 9999 registrations, a 2nd area code was given. This had an interesting advantage as a larger area had more codes than a smaller one, i.e. Lake District 3 codes, Coventry 7 codes, Reading and Essex both 12 codes. This means all areas go through the systems in roughly the same time. Once all codes AA to YY (or indeed ZZ) were used up, the system needed to be extended and was changed to 3 letters, 3 numbers. But to not make it even more complicated they stopped issuing more area codes. That is why - as explained in the video - in the 3-letter-block the 1st letter is random while 2nd & 3rd are area code. Since Lake District is very small in number of vehicles, I think they are a perfect example: Lake District had only 3 area codes, which are AO, HH & RM. AO shows they were quite early with their first ever registered car, but when Reading had AN, BL, CF, DP etc, Lake District’s 2nd one was only HH. Once Lake District reached RM 9999, the next one was AAO 1 to AAO 999, then AHH, ARM, BAO etc. But there is something else to obeye, some areas are so big that they thought maybe it was simpler to give them hints. So everything starting with an L is London, as well as most starting with M and Y. Also the X is interesting as they were spare plates should one region run out too early. Again starting with X. London had some codes outside the L*, M* & Y*, these basically could even be identifying regions of London with a lot of South-East starting with G as well… But basically once ALA to AYY was issued it carried on with BLA to BYY, CLA etc…. Not finished here, Wales was incorporated with England, but Scotland had a special identifier again, every code containing an S was for Scotland. See “containing” rather than “starting”. So LB is London but BL is Reading. But then BS is Inverness, SB is Glasgow, both Scotland. CS is Glasgow, SC is Edinburgh, you get the drift? It maybe is weird that in the 3-letters the middle one is most important. But it would have been a nuisance without profit to even issue 3-digit area codes. So an easy guideline is: Most smaller places only have 12 or less letters, so it is easy to memorise them. But with very few exceptions: xIx & xxI = Ireland, xLx = London, xSx & xxS = Scotland, xXx = spare plates, xYx = London, xZx & xxZ = Ireland.... Now in the video: “Northern Ireland has a separate system” & “The letter I was not issued to not mistake it with a number.” Not 100% correct, yet super fascinating: When the system started in 1903 Ireland was not split yet and part of the Kingdom. So Ireland as a whole originally had the same system and as with Scotland and the S, Ireland were issued all plates containing an I or a Z. AI, AZ, BI, BZ, IA, IB, ZA, ZB etc… Of course at some point the Republic of Ireland was formed and they started their very own system. Northern Ireland in turn kept the area codes they were given, but they never took on the Letter of the Year but went 4-digit numbers instead. So yes, the Northern Irish system is different, but it does originate from the British system! So Belfast has 12 codes, same number as Essex or Reading, they all contain an I or a Z. Easier example is Antrim, which has 4 codes: DZ, IA, KZ & RZ. Many rally cars were registered there (for various reasons, the easiest one Sydney Meeke = Kris’ dad for a time prepared Manta 400s for GM UK), so groupB Nissan 240RS chassis 1 (of 200) = UIA 4275, Jimmy McRae’s BRC winning Manta 400 = WIA 5958, famous Prodrive BMW M3 = ADZ 9667…. you see there is a connection. Not easy to spot as Northern Ireland did not adopt the letter of year, but the area codes being the 2nd & 3rd letter of the 3-letter-block and not clashing with any (up to 2001) English, Welsh & Scottish area codes is absolutely no coincidence! Complicated but a fascinating system, so I hope for who is interested in this system, this was entertaining additional info.
While at it, maybe suggestions for future videos: I am German and we Germans do everything by numbers. Yes, I guess I do, but exactly that is why British systems fascinate me! German reg plates are simple, but since often transferred they bear problems and do not allow research. How about: A video on UK road numbers? I love them. The area in Germany were I live we have the A8, the A620, the B406, the L157, where does this make sense? Answer, it doesn’t! In UK it circles around London, to the North 1, East 2, South 3, West 4. There are 5 and 6 too, but once you cross the border to Scotland they change to 7, 8, 9! If you are in Wales you find roads starting 4+5, but if you are on roads starting 7-8-9, you are even guaranteed in Scotland! It goes even further, I used to live around 70 miles West of London and we had roads like A4074, B4009… Go further West (along the M4 if you like) and in South Wales you find the A470, the A48, so the number of digits tells you how big the road is and the 2nd number after the 4 roughly tells you how far away from London it is. That means in UK the road numbers give you a rough idea where in the country you are, excellent, it is the Germans that have the utter mess! A video on UK post codes? Maybe only indirectly connected to cars and driving. But in Germany I live in the post code area 66663. Despite being 5 digits, it is an area of 30,000 people and this is still small! In UK I used to live in OX10 (space) 9QR. Sounds way more complicated. But OX is Oxford (so I already know I am in Oxfordshire), 10 is Wallingford, 9 the village near Wallingford I lived in (10_0 & 10_1 would be Wallingford itself) and the QR is like a raster. It was a small road, maybe 40 houses, yet alone this road had QR, QS & QT. So in Germany I spend 10 minutes feeding my sat nav. In UK I just hack in the post code and it is accurate to 10 houses despite only having 1 digit more than the German system = clever!! I love it, yet only very few people know about it I guess?
@@nlpnt Thanks for you reply! Wasn't it for some time that British reg plates were white front and yellor rear, yet Irish white front and red rear? To have some destinction, but black letters on dark red plates??
I've lived through the suffix, prefix and current registration formats. So to me, it's second nature (including the Q plate). It's only when you explained it that I realised how muddled it is. You barely mentioned how they rushed the prefix letter system out of existence, by introducing the 6-monthly registration change before the current system. That further confuses things
Thanks for explaining, i have noticed at lot UK YT with car content identified cars by number plates. Australia with 6 states n 2 territories all have different colour plates n letters/numbers order. Some states/territories have slogans at bottom of the number plate. Some states/territories have special plates government plates for government vehicles, personal plates, euro style plates, interstate plates for trucks or known as federal plates.
With trucks they have NHVR plates since sometime in 2018, or on older trucks if they have been reregistered since then or needed a replacement plate. I think WA still runs state plates on trucks/heavy vehicles
Wikipedia has excessive detail if anyone wants to go for a deep dive! Far harder to follow than Twin Cam's description, but for some intrigued it will fill an hour or so! Great intro to this weirdly interesting topic!
@@LostsTVandRadio not at all. They had quite a few quirks. Certain types, RT, RM were separated chassis and body on overhaul. Put back together using a different body or chassis and often received the registration from another vehicle. And all completely legal! Apparently!
Here in Malta, it's very simple: three letters, a space, three digits. And if you have a custom number plate, like my 'ERR 404', you can transfer it to your next car. Those cost €200. The first letter indicates when the car was registered (very straightforward: A is January, and so forth). If you decide to get a custom number plate, your VRT (MOT) and insurance lapse in that month. There are some exceptions, and certain combinations are restricted (such as 'GVP' for the police), but you can look those up on Wikipedia. The President, Prime Minister and Archbishop have their emblem instead of a number plate, which is pretty cool. However, you can also get a fully personalised number plate with up to 10 letters and digits, with liberal placement of spaces, for a mere €1500. I've seen cars where the number plate makes up a substantial percentage of the value of the car. Usually you'd find them on Chelsea tractors, though. But if you lived here, you could get a 'TWIN CAM' number plate!
In the UK the plate your trailer wears goes with the towing vehicle. Saves issues if you can't see the plate on the towing vehicle. Unless you're a farmer. Then your trailer, towed baler or whatever can wear any plate from any of the vehicles owned by you, regardless of whether that vehicle (owned/registered to you) is towing at the time.
In Germany we have regional coding with one, two or three letters in one block then another zwo letters and up to four numbers. You can always tell the place where the car is registered - and if you move you get a new plate. Big citys have one or two letters, rural areas three - so it is always entertaining that we city dwellers invent funny meanings for our friends's plates from the countryside (when they feel uneasy driving in the big big city ;-)
One of the quirks is that after 1990 or before 2001 6 character plates were no longer assigned to new cars. If you do find one and it is not a personal plate then it signifies that the car was registered new with a personal plate and thus never gained a unique age-related one of it's own. When the personal plate is transferred off the car a 6 digit one is assigned with the correct age marker so it's easy to tell that the plate is not original at time of first registration. Since 2001 though cars registered with a personal plate initially have a standard number assigned to them but only in the background at the DVLA and won't appear on records until the personal plate is transferred.
That's interesting, although I'm not sure that's true. I bought a new car in Winchester, and put my personal plate on it. When I sold it, it was assigned an Isle of Wight plate (HW), despite never having gone to the Island.
@@cjmillsnun that would be a car registered after 2001 then, the 6 digit thing was dropped on the switch to the current style plates. It only applied for the last decade of Prefix plates.
@@cjmillsnun Since the local offices all closed, re - registrations are no longer geographical; you get allocated one of whichever block DVLA are issuing at the time (from year-end gaps or whole unused series)
That is a crackin piece of info Neil! The only car in the family that had 6 digits was my granda's used 99 Mondeo. He bought it in around 2002 and was the second owner so he would've been the first person to run around with the T plate on it. Weirdly he replaced the plate with his own private plate in 2005 which was also a 6 digit T plate.
funnily enough, i remember the number plate assigned to my father's 1950's morris minor traveller from when i was a child in london the early 1960's. it was sold when we emigrated the canada. but good old JRX 939 lived on in an old family photo of me washing it at the age of around 4 or 5!
Great video. As an Aussie with in-laws who were originally from Britain this explains a strange story about my wife's grandfather repainting his number plates on his Ford Falcon about 15 years ago. As a born and bred Aussie this really shocked me, and I was concerned about him getting booked for modifying state issued number plates. In all Australian jurisdictions, plates are state issued, and cannot be modified in anyway, so hearing in this video that as long as the plates meet certain standards anyone can produce them that explains why my grandfather in-law saw no issue with repainting his plates.
Something mentioned here in the comments about ex military vehicles sold through official MOD disposal agents was this. I purchased an ex UK Army Armstrong MT 500 motorcycle. Because it's original date of manufacture was known, it had to be issued with a number plate which would have been issued to a vehicle sold domestically in that year of manufacture. I had a problem trying to get an MOT certificate after I restored it, the reason given at the time was that because it did not have a UK registration number plate, it could not be taxed or insured. The way round this was apparently to have the motorcycle MOTd under the VIN plate number. Then, once MOT certificate was in place, the vehicle could then be registered with the DVLA (as was), an age related number plate issued, then I could insure it and pay the road fund licence as per the power output. Talk about convoluted! A great explanation of the UK licence plate system though, easy to understand and clearly explained.
Here in USA ( Florida ) the plate stays with the person , even when you get a new vehicle. Plus as someone else mentioned a separate plate is used for a trailer. ( per trailer... non transferable!)
What's odd is all numbers belong to the Secretary of State and can be withdrawn for any reason, though normally it only happens if it's inappropriate and issued in error or became inappropriate over time. A famous example being BO11 LUX that the DVLA sold, then forced the driver to remove it.
Thank you very much for your detailed explanation. I'm an Aussie in the State of Victoria and our system is a bit different. Also I do hope that you won't mind me saying that in explaining something that I've long wondered about you've also managed to confuse me in equal measure! 🙂
Whats also interesting is that originally, Ireland,north and south, had same reg number system as Britain. Ireland just used letters i and z. So,for instance Dublin used the letters Z,ZA,ZC,ZD and so on. Then,when they were used up,they put the letters A to Y in front,so,for example with ZA, they had AZA, BZA, CZA, and so on. Scotland simply had an S in their similar reg numbers,also using G for Glasgow. London used Q in their similar reg no.plates. Anyone confused?
I wondered about the British system, and now I know. Thanks for explaining. I had already figured that, like here in the Netherlands, the number plate is registered to the car and stays with it for the rest of its life. The other similarity is that the date of issue of the number plate can be derived, although not directly from the number, it can be looked up. For the vast majority of cars on the road this will tell you their age (just not for those that were imported at a later age). There the similarities end. Since it's merely a chronological issuing system, it holds no other information. They are issued by the Netherlands Vehicle Authority and it does not offer/allow personalisation. There are, however, distinctions made in the system beteween those for cars and those for commercial vehicles or types of vehicle (like e.g. trailers that have their own number plate). Some letters that appear first in the number (not necessarily at the first position) are reserved for those distinctions.
In Adelaide, South Australia, when personalised plates were first available, a friend of mine (a smart-arse young lawyer who was always fighting the cops and whom the police therefore hated), in defiance of the 'no obscenities' rule, requested the plate TIHS•00. It appeared innocent enough, so was granted and issued. However, when seen in another car's rear-view mirror, it read OO•SHIT. When the police first encountered it, they tried very hard to have the plate cancelled, but the minor court that heard the matter dismissed the police's complaint. Lawyer: 1 Cops: 0
Fascinating video. Thank you. I’ve had lots of different company cars over the years and couldn’t tell you what any of the registrations were but I can always remember the registration number of my dad’s Ford Prefect which he had from the 50s to 1968. It was 3 letters 3 numbers. I enquired about buying the number as personalised plate. Unfortunately I found out the number is scrapped when the car is scrapped. But yeah. Great video!
Ed, you should do a follow-up on how both private/cherished plates and the Northern Ireland plate system/history works - especially as NI plates are a popular private plate option for UK mainland cars! Here in the US it is relatively easy and inexpensive in most states to obtain a personalized/cherished plate. For example, my first car in NI was a 1973 Wolseley 1300 with the County Antrim reg of GIA478. Unfortunately we let this slip away at the time when the Wolseley was sold for scrap in the late 80s and this plate lived on attached to an Alfa Romeo for some time, before finally lapsing completely. According to the DVLA (I enquired!), there are no plans to offer lapsed plates again to the market. So, I did the next best thing - I went to my local motor vehicle registration authority in Florida and verified that GIA 478 was an available combination and paid a mere $100 to have that as my vehicle registration here!
That's not the case in every state though - Vermont doesn't allow more than 2 numerals on a personalized plate so they don't overlap with the regular series.
That mg metro in your thumbnail was a one owner car that I personally found and purchased after being parked in the corner of a car workshop for 25 years , glad to see it got restored
Until the changeover in 2001 we were familiar with those time-honoured geographical codes. GL, AF and CV for Cornwall, WP and NP for Worcestershire, FH, AD and DG for Gloucestershire etc. Unfortunately those codes stay hard wired in our memories so now we tend to misinterpret the 'new' plates.
Can identify with that. Likewise in Oxford we had BW/FC/JO/UD/WL until 2001 ...personally had FBW [Triumph] VFC/EJO/PUD [Rovers] in the 1980-99 period🙂
Technically Q was used to indicate a vehicle where the age could not be determined, common at one time on ex military vehicles, former breakdown trucks etc.
I've seen military now have a different system yet again. I think it's Number-Number Letter-Letter Number-Number. Often with 3 lines of text, and the old black background plates.
Q was also used for temporary registrations often on Vehicles belonging to foreign Embassies only here for a year or less or new vehicles that will be exported by driving them to destination country and registered there. Trade plates only recognised in Great Britain.
@@onetonlandrover Of course there is alos the very rare diplomatic plate. A 'D' in the middle where the numbers would /should be on civilian vehicles. Groups of numbers on either side.
In North America, plates were often changed annually, you got a completely new number to memorize, and the colours of the lettering and background were often changed as well. There were some pretty hideous colour combinations, ugly in their own right, and they didn’t add anything to the overall beauty of the car. Something that came from this which is pretty cool, is people, predominantly in rural areas where they had barns or sheds, they would nail the old plates to the wall. It made for quite a display, you might see a display reaching back to the 30’s, and it told a story of world history, sometimes intentionally, sometimes not, centennials, bi-centennials, metal shortages in war time. Now, with the vanity plates, it tells you something about owners cleverness, or distinct lack of such.
Connecticut was the first state to issue a permanent license plate in 1948 (aside from WW2 metal-saving temporary measures) although the number stayed with the owner not the car. IIRC Indiana was the last state issuing new plates annually sometime in the early '80s.
Well explained! Glad to have an explanation of the pre-83 system, my Dad, love him, has always slightly overcomplicated that.😅 Our previous system I'd only add the minor foot-note 'X' and'Y' prefix numbers got squidged into 1year (I assume a neat 6months each?) to hasten in the new/current reg' system. I have an X-reg Rover 25 registered in January '01, and my good friend owned one from only a few months later with a Y-reg', that snuck in before the __01 was introduced.
One slight caution. If you are driving in Spain, Malta or Cyprus you still need the old fashioned style country identifier sticker with UK on it even if you do have the new style plates with a Union Jack and UK on the left hand side. Don't suppose many people take their car to Malta or Cyprus but quite a lot will go to Spain. Not sure why those three countries decided to follow different rules to every other EU country.
Years ago, had a white Rover Metro with reg. no. M***GCU and parked at a friend's house behind another white Metro, N***GCU. Wonder what the odds are on the same reg. but only the year letter different on the same model & colour car? Still have it on SORN, allegedly less than 300 Metros left.
Exactly video. I used to work for DVLA issuing numbers to dealers and registering new and imported cars. I’m a total number plate nerd and lived that job
IIRC, the issue frequency changed towareds the end of the prefix letter year issues, as they wanted to get to the new system before the old system ran out (i..e. got to Y reg on an anual-issue basis), so X & Y registrations were issued in 6-month intevrals, consequently, there aren't many X or Y plate cars about compared to, say, P, V or W.
Interesting video Ed and well explained. Not easy our seemingly bonkers systems that have changed several times. In terms of the older plates and town/city identifiers, local to me in West Yorkshire was HD for Dewsbury, CX as well as VH for Huddersfield and JX for Halifax, none of which you’d call exactly obvious! There again on the latest system G signifies Kent; apparently we all know Kent is referred to as the Garden of England… Personal plates are quite a thing now of course. I quite like the old prefix letter for the date plates for looking a bit less fussy, so have one on my current car. The plate would actually make it 1984, but in reality it’s a 2021 model.
Impressive performance to explain the unexplainable! I used to have cars on q plates, bought in germany drove to dover claiming to stay a few months in the uk and the AA provided the plates. parking tickets of course never arrived:)
In the case of your MGF P812 CAU, the place identifier is the last two letters AU. These were quite specific IIRC. This format identifies the year of registry by the first letter P and the numbers are random. Going back further, TBY 233 Y had the last letter defining the year of registry, the last two letters of the three bring the location code BY, and the numbers again random. The year code started in September, although anything registered in D (CJA 27 D) referred to the year starting in January.
in switzerland, number plates have two letters in front, representing the canton it is registered (BE for Bern, ZH for Zurich, TI for Ticino). followed by a number between 3-digit and 6-digit. the lower the number, the more they are "worth". most cantons run an online-auction for low-digit or fancy numbers. or you just get a random one for 40.- at registration. plates are stuck to the owner of the car and can be transferred easily to a new car you buy. the odd thing in switzerland is, there are the same numberplates out there for cars and motorcycles, not belonging to the same owner.
Also , up until October 1974 , registration marks were issued by local councils . After this date they were issued by local vehicle licensing offices , set up by the DVLA . Quite a few two letter area codes , were 're issued to totally different areas at this time . For example CF , which was West Suffolk was 're allocated to Reading .
I did a personal import from Eire in 98, (Toyota IE, got me a hi-spec Camry direct from Toyota Japan, with full EU Warranty). It was full EU Spec & loaded! I did all the paperwork,. What I learnt, was that when I read up about registration in the UK, one had to adhere to the precise year of manufacture. No dodgy deals about a "Newer" Reg number. Years later I learnt from a trip to Kenya, that other countries don't give a dam. So thank you, uk for precise laws.
All I can add is Gloucester ended in AD for the old style so there was loads of MAD & DAD plates. Newer style plates were prefixed by VU VX, this was to do with the DVLA office headquartered in Worcester and the Roman name of Worcester being Vertis.
On rare occasions the last two letters on the old system, did reflect the town's name, especially in the old County Borough Council days. Here in Bolton we used to have "BN" on our plates. I don't think that was just a coincidence.
In 1986 I bought a 1963 Landrover tow-truck from the Southdown bus company in Brighton. When I viewed it, it had the reg W7- How old must that number have been!. When I took delivery of it, it had a 'year appropriate' 7 digit plate. Of course I was slightly miffed- but I presume the company had retained and transferred these numbers through the fleet since the 1900's.
Its also widely believed that any plates beginning SF are most likely to be undercover police cars in Scotland as most of them come through the same registry office
I have a 1959 copy of the book 'The Observers Book of Automobiles'. It gives loads of information on auto related trivia from that time. National and international reg code designations, car manufacturers both UK and abroad with some photos and much more. The "yank tanks" from that period were huge chrome laden monsters and all the individual UK companies listed before they were swallowed up into British Leyland or Rootes. I believe the performance figures of Rolls Royce cars were often just described as 'adequate' without any numbers being given or was that just urban myth. A interesting read if you can find a copy.
In Ontario, our two plates are reflective and for some reason we don’t pay a fee. We also know the front of a car from the back. Edit: Our plates stay with the owner, not the car. Our plates need to be licensed to the car they are affixed. Our plates are renewed on our birthdays. The plates simply say where and when they were issued.
When the 3 letter system with year identification letter at the end were being issued a couple of combinations were reserved for special issue, GPO for General Post Office vehicles, and MAN for vehicles registered in the Isles of Man, before they moved to a completely different system, unique to the island.
Ed, when did you get a Red BMW, it's parked just to the right of the extension ladder. ED, I have a old plate hanging up in our garage "in CA USA." The plate is silver on black, its made of aluminum and has QB 9009 on it. What would the history of that plate be? I picked it up at an auto swap meet YEARS ago. Another great watch.
Has anyone noticed that the vast majority of cars reg'd since 2001 (so 99% of what you see on the road) have at least one U V W X Y or Z in the last 3 letters? Once I spotted it, I couldn't stop seeing it everywhere! The current system is handy though. You can sometimes know what sort of a life the car has had by the plate. Buying a relatively new car with a far away area code? Could be higher mileage as it may travel a lot. Buying an 20 year old Yaris in the north of Scotland with SY at the start? It's probably not had many owners, but could be rotten because of the crap weather.
When I was in southern England back in 1993, I did not know about the changing date of the 1st of August, but I had noticed that the letters went up to K. Then, on the morning of the 1st of August, which was a Sunday, I was quite surprised to see an L. Later in the morning I saw a second one. And by the evening I had seen more than 10 licence plates starting with L. It was then that I learned about the rush for the new letter each year. This year I was in England (between Dover and London) in September 4-9. I was quite surprised that during several days, cycling along busy roads I had not seen a single 74. Is there no rush any more ?
There is also a specific format for drivers of other countries working here for embassies or having other diplomatic status. For these you will see three numbers the letter D or X and then three more numbers which signify the country of the embassy.
And Chester / west Cheshire had FM, so all Crosville buses (including in all of north Wales) were FM. South & east Cheshire had TU, which is why many Rolls-Royces you see in films are TU’s, because of the RR factory in Crewe.
Djizus, what a complicated system !!! I'm Norwegian, and we got a total different system. 2 letters, as a prfix for where the vehicle is registrated. 5 numbers, starting from 10000 Trailers, mc, tractors and quadbikes got 4 numbers Wehicles on road got white backround, and black writing. Wehicles off road (snowmobiles, tractors, industrial vehicles) got black background, and yellow writing. Military got yellow background, black writing (only numbers) And ambassy owned vehicles got blue background and yellow writing. It has been like that sins 1972.
Oh, Twin Cam didn’t explain British diplomatic number plates since 1979 - 3 numbers , one letter (D for diplomatic staff, X for non-diplomatic staff of international organisations), 3 numbers. The first 3 numbers are the country or organisation it’s been issued to, alphabetically with additions for countries that became independent after 1979 (some countries are out of place because of changes of name e.g. 281 is DR Congo but was Zaire when the system was set up), so 101 = Afghanistan, 282 = Zambia (end of the original sequence), 330 = Kosovo; 350-399 can be used by any country for security reasons; 600-649 is for visiting royalty; 900-944 are for international organisations in the UK e.g. 917 = United Nations. The final 3 numbers start from 101 for diplomats, 400 for non-diplomatic staff of international organisations, or 700 for consular or other non-diplomatic staff.
The UK has about 20 times the population of Norway, so presumably the national vehicle fleet is 20 times larger, so a more complex system is required to have enough licence plates to go around.
Some further UK reg plate oddities: armed service vehicles having different number/ letter sequences and being non-reflective white on black, diplomatic and embassy having different layout, some with an X in the middle and also motor trade plates being red on white issued to the individual / business rather than the vehicle.
Towards the end of the date prefix series they started changing twice per year, as they were close to running out of numbers in a given year, IIRC. Other quirks: suffix A wasn't universally adopted as some licensing offices still had plenty of plates left in the old system, and suffix E ran from January to August 1967 because they changed the date that year. Famously, despite the ban on potentially-offensive numbers, the number PEN 15 does exist. It would have been issued from the Truro office if memory serves, and just possibly was an innocent mistake, or maybe someone bribed the licensing officer :D
Excellent video. I have several "cherished" plates on various vehicles. It always amuses me though, that the DVLA have a bit of a double standard. They will encourage you to buy a plate that says a certain word, thing, or sentence if you bunch the letters up. But then, when you buy it and display it spacing it the way you should to make it show the word you bought it for, they then fine you for doing so!!! A tad hypocritical, methinks. For example: SHE1K. Legally, it can only be written and displayed as SHE 1 K. Or COM1C, that Jimmy Tarbuck had, or MAG1C for Paul Daniels. COM 1 C and MAG 1 C was how they had to be displayed. Also, I love it when the pen pushers miss an obvious "rude" one that slips through the net. Preston licencing office allowed PN15 to be used and I've seen lots of "interesting " combinations. PN15 BYG. PN15 BOY PNI5 MAD etc, etc. When I saw the first one, I remember thinking "Oops, someone messed up there". Many thanks for a great video.
I pretty much Knew how the Plates worked only You went on to explain it somehow alot simplier. However I was not Aware that they still issued Q Plates 😮 Amazing
Even as a self-confessed number plate nerd, I admit this is a difficult subject to make engaging. But you've presented this really well!
It’s great to see someone who is clearly born after the year 2000 taking an interest in British heritage, I’ve been accused of being a number plate nerd but I didn’t know everything you shared so thank you for teaching an old petrol head some new information!
I just love a Twin-Cam information video - Ed is so good at this!
You forgot one British plate oddity. You use the same car plate in the back of your trailer. Most of the other world have different plates and registration for trailers.
Yep.
In Spain you also have that if the trailer isn't supposed to carry more than 750kG of weight
@@cosaqueexiste9647 Even more confusing :)
That’s right, trailers here have their own plates and a different annual registration fee structure too.
@@cosaqueexiste9647Similar in Australia but goes by size, smaller than 6ft x 4ft can use car number, larger trailer has it's own plate.
When I was a youngster back in 1972 it was possible to reserve a number prior to it being issued. I was living in London then and the London codes at that time were JD. I was able to reserve PJD (my initials) followed 2L, L being the year, 1972. Unfortunately someone had already blagged the number 1. I was very proud of that plate which I had on a BSA motorcycle. This was in the days before personalised number plates became a huge financial business.
C00L
I hope you still own that plate!
My initials match yours 👍
I think JD was an East Ham code, some London long Routemaster buses, (RML) had JJD, ***D in 1966,
I like the VLT on a bus
@@des_smith7658 Yes Mate, London Transport reserved the SLT for the four prototypes, ,SLT 56 to SLT 59 for the first four, then VLT, WLT, CLT(reversed along with DYE, ie 776 DYE, RM 1776) then ALD and ALM with a B suffix, then CUV with a C, then NML on an E, and finally SMK 760F,( RML 2760), but never beat the 7000 odd RT Family Buses built during, and after the War, exotic letters like EYK FJJ, FXT, HLX, KYY, LLU,NXP, and OLD for the very last RT. (may have left some out,)
Many Municipal Vehicles also reserved blocks of Registrations, I remember many London Borough of Haringey Dustcarts registered HUL***K.
I remember that the AA (Automobile Association) used to issue a yearly handbook with useful information for the motorist. At the back was a listing of all the two-letter district codes.
Yeah, I remember that. Used to do 'car spotting' on long radio-less journeys when we were kids. Spot the car from furthest away....
I remember that, it also had the International letter codes used on stickers displayed when travelling outside the vehicles country of registration eg F D NL etc
My son hired a car in Chicago which bore the legend on the plate “Florida, the sunshine state”, which created questions whilst he drove in IL & IN. 🙂
I have that very same handbook,here in Cork,Ireland. Back then,the whole island of Ireland were part of the British reg number system,using letters Z and I. Ireland stopped using this system in 1986 when the numbers began running out. It made for some interesting reg lettering, such as DIE, RIP, DIP, TIC, DIM, etc
If anyone remembers I-Spy books (a very British thing for kids) they did a car registration spotters book that you could tick off the area letters (last two of the three letter group) on the old style system. When I was growing up we didn't venture too far so spotting opportunities were fairly limited plus I lived in a rural area in Wales so seeing cars from the rest of the country was rare.
This is such a convoluted, confusing system. It makes no sense to me. Thank you for explaining it.
You can also transfer a plate onto another car you own, or can gift it, so long as it does not make the car appear newer than it is. For example my dad bought a car in the early 1960s with an old Surrey plate of 4 numbers + 2 letters. This got transferred onto every car he subsequently owned and not long after his passing when my mum stopped driving she gifted it to me and its now on a 2014 car
Correct but as I found out years ago,the car it's coming off,must have a valid mot. Might have change now tho.
Some original numbers cannot be transferred.
Tractors... saw Mor 64 on one a few years ago
@@Duckymack-72 - As you say "it must have changed" - Well, the only example I know of.
My Dad bought a 1958 Standard.10 in Dec'1965 & my Mother took me to school in it, inevitably.
I drove her home as an M.o.T failure in 1990 & my Dad just wanted rid of, sadly - But I urged him NOT to sell to my mate's dickhead friend - Not before "saving" the quality numberplate - (Read on...)
Took months & NO VALID M.o.T (which was reason he was selling it : Failure list as long as your arm)
Went from 1958 Standard Ten, to a 1979 Mini Clubman (in 1990), until 2011 & then when Dad sold the little Mini Clubman over on E-Bay, he later had it transferred over to one of his two K.11 Nissan Micra's
We still have that 'flash' number-plate today - It's part of the family & I've turned it down, twice !!
At NO STAGE in proceedings did either previous car have a valid M.o.T, or ANY M.o.T whatsoever.
He did hold it "on a retainer" as it was said, until he purchased the older, but better Micra (of two)
@@bwoo6223 interesting. I'll have to check that out.
Thanks for clarifying about the Northern Ireland situation 😅
Over here we have 3 letters then a space and then 4 numbers, plates have to have either a I or Z (or can have both), with most ending in Z. The second two letters act as a locator, although it isn't as easy to know where the car was registered though, for example the current Belfast code ends in -MZ and Ballymena ends in -RZ. The first letter tells you roughly the date the car was registered, and cycles through alphabetically, for example Belfast currently it is G (GMZ), but unlike the GB system where the date identifier every half year, the NI system changes when they run out of serial numbers (last 4 numbers) for that area. So the identifier for cars in Belfast changes the most because most cars are registered there. When they run out of first letters, they then advance the second letter, but again there is no system to this it is just what hasn't been used yet or cannot be used, for example Belfast used -GZ but now uses -MZ, they skipped the other letters in between because they have recently been used by other areas (HZ for Tyrone, JZ for Down etc) except IZ which cannot be used (maybe because I and Z can't be beside each other).
**Upon research I have found that the areas have actually cycled through the second 2 letters, in fact belfast has cycled through their 12 codes about 2.75 times since 1904
a Z for the identifier is only ever the 3rd letter, but an I can be used as the identifier for either the first, second or third letter. The last 4 digits are numbers and are serial numbers.
Like the rest of the UK, the NI plates also had an optional GB identifier (ironic since NI is not part of GB) and the GB identifier was changed to UK partly to be more inclusive of NI
I think IZ isn't used because it used to be a pre-1987, Republic of Ireland combination for Co Mayo.
It was always cool to be able to choose your number plate from a selection in a book assigned to the dealership when purchasing a brand new car.
It’s a shame you still can’t do this!
The closest I got was when I bought a new Chevy Aveo in 2008. The dealer had 4 or 5 identical pre-reg'd cars with 20-30 miles on the clock so I got to choose my plate. I went with DKO so I could call the car Dicko.
I bought my lad a 125cc bike when he turned 17 in October 2010, and he chose the reg from a list.
In 1979 when I was 17 I bought a brand new motorbike and when ordering it from the dealer they presented me with a book with a list of available number plates to choose from.
As a car registration buff I salute this video as a great explanation of our car registrations. A great explanatory video. Brilliant!
agree! Very interesting
Utterly fascinating, informative, beautifully scripted and beautifully edited video. Amazing work! Some really interesting tidbits in there I had no idea about!
Really loved that, thank you! Would welcome a follow up on some of the quirks, the fact you can buy a personalised plate within set rules, transfers between cars, age related plates on classic cars (all the stuff you hate!) Etc. I was once able to persuade DVLA to put R771AHD into an auction which I wanted because I had AH771R on my classic
I'd wondered what the British system was, only to find out there were multiple systems. I'd heard presenters talking about "K" plates or "M" plates, but had no idea what they were talking about. I'm more informed now, but still just as confused. Thanks for trying.
1974 saw the formation of Tyne & Wear Metropolitan Fire Brigade. All firemen recruited in that year were called "M Regers".
Great video. The old system of area identifying letters was generally codes rather than abbreviations, many areas and Cities were very proud of their codes, JN for Southend on Sea, DL for the Isle of Wight, and many others, it was all there for us kids, listed in Dad's AA Members' Handbook, hours of fun out on the road spotting vehicles from different places.
Can relate to that.....here in Oxford originally we had FC/JO/WL [City of Oxford] also BW/UD [County of Oxfordshire] until 1974. Then all came under Oxford until 2001....my last old style Oxford registration plate being V957 VFC on a '99 Rover 214🙂
In our case it was Dad's RAC Members' Handbook, and 60 years on I can still remember many of the location codes from those days. I agree with you about pride in areas' codes and recall how excited my mum got when, on the annual 500 hundred mile trip back to her home in the far north of Scotland, we would see the first smattering of "SK" registrations!
@@jb3222 As someone with Scottish connections, (my Missus was from Paisley), I understand your Mum's excitement.
Yes, 'R' suffix was the last letter to last a whole year.
The prefix for the Isle of Wight is HW
thanks Ed. I've saved this one to watch a few times over. being a child of the 60s and 70s the letter prefix and suffix systems were instinctive. when they changed to the modern system with 2 registrations per year the vehicle age now takes some pondering. maybe after a few more watches it might become easier.
Very clear explanation, thank you. As a classic car enthusiast, I've had to go through the explanation many times. Now I can just point them to your video.😁
One additional thing perhaps worth mentioning is the proliferation of "cherished" or "vanity" number plates. These number plates will comply with the rules that you explained (and will be correct for one of the rule sets mentioned) but they will not necessarily reflect anything to do with the age or original registration location of the vehicle. People usually choose such plates because they have letter/number combinations that mean things to them (such as perhaps spelling out their name). I don't know how it is in the rest of the country, but such number plates are really quite common in the area where I live. So, gleaning information about a car from its displayed number plate is a bit hit-or-miss around here.
Great explanation. I think the people at the Revell and Italeri model kit companies should look at this video because they always get UK plates wrong.
Thank you from Australia.
With an interest in steam machinery and seeing registration plates on traction engines, steam rollers and steam trucks some of this starts to makes sense. (It would have been nice if you talked more about the system from 1903, but the more recent stuff is more relevant to most viewers.)
Watching a UK rebuild YT channel it starts to make a lot more sense.
The area codes did start with a system in 1903, but it soon had to be supplemented in more populous areas, so became diluted - it was done by population size, so London was A, Lancashire was B, Yorkshire was C, etc.
The area codes for Ireland in 1903 (then part of the UK) had combinations with an I or a Z in them, and were assigned alphabetically by county name - IA was Antrim, IB was Armagh, IC was Carlow, ID was Cavan, etc. When Ireland split into Northern Ireland and The Republic of Ireland in 1922, the 1903 system in the Republic's counties continued until 1987, when it was replaced by a different system, rather than adding a suffix as GB did in 1963. The original dateless, county-based system continues in Northern Ireland today.
Yes the I for Ireland did give scope for initials, which were eye catching. The very first episode of a well liked rural crime series set in rural England, had an undertaker using a Hearse with the Reg Plate RIP 1 (IP Being the old index for County Kilkenny) were old Irish Plates allowed to be transferred to Great Britain?. If you reverse IP to PI if the number after it was 3414 then that was the constant pi, or PI 2217 with a slightly slanted 1 gave the same result (PI being the old Reg index. for Cork City) Very enjoyable subject.
@@KieranWyse yes they could and I believe still can be transferred to GB and indeed many of the most expensive cherished numbers originated in what is now the Republic of Ireland, VIP 1 etc. being an obvious example. Unfortunately it was never allowed to transfer plates on vehicles within the RoI so these numbers effectively died when they vehicle they were fitted to was taken off the road. I think Ireland misses a trick and cheriched/vanity number plates would be a nice little earner but it's just never been a thing, even when many "nice" plates were around under the 1904 system. The current Irish system is as dull as ditchwater and makes the year of registration so obvious as to devalue vehicles needlessly.
@@murphaph The old System in Ireland (ROI) was never allocated the following letters in 1903/04 G, S & V. Eventually, and because combinations were being used up these three letters were allocated to Co.Limerick for V, thus IV AIV, BIV etc. G for Dublin ZG, along with S, ZS etc. S was also allocated to Co. Mayo, thus IS AIS etc. GI for the South Riding of Co.Tipperary. The Prefix ZZ equals Q, temporary Imports, and is still used today.
The new system was and still is what the motor trade likes, and second hand car buyers. It does not as you say inspire any scope for a selection of cherished numbers or indices. As far as I know you can reserve a particular number, and pay extra to the registration authorities. This new system also allowed the importation of second hand vehicles, mainly from the U.K. Of course the old UK plate had to be replaced with an Irish one, and post 1987 with these imports, a new plate was allocated. Thus if the UK vehicle was registered before 1987 the new plate showed the year of first registration e.g. 1985 would be 85 XX NNNN. Complex I know but you can spot the year of registration straight away. I have seen the following plates 29 KY 1- 1929, Owner lived in Co. Kerry and the index 1 indicated the first for that year imported. 58 C 1- 1958 County of Cork, this is a short wheeled base Land Rover. I have not seen any index above 1 for these years.
@@KieranWyse yeah we had several ZG plates growing up. I remember them well. My first motorcycle was a pre-87 Leitrim plate IIT 782.
Loved spotting registrations as a kid. Especially during the school holidays when the new plate would come out. I always tried to see how quickly I could see one. My personal record is 3 day before registration day: July 28th (P reg, 1996).
One of my first cars was a 1979 3.0S Capri running black plates. Originally issued with the white/yellow combination.
As an American; I appreciate the explanation, interesting system.
If you count DVLA auctions, there are still registrations being issued in every format used since 1903!
True, and for some serious money in many cases of course , coincidentally a purely curiosity related search a few days ago shows my 3 initials with a single number 1 available at £ 80k!
I didn't think I cared about number plates this much, but I found this video really interesting. Thank you!
Very well explained. I love the UK system, as complicated as it is, as fascinating it is.
For comparison here in Germany (as in most EU countries) plates are re-issued after use. And they are re-issued often as every time a car changes owner or region it needs a new reg plate. This keeps the reg plates themselves simple, but leads to problems ever again. i.e. I twice had issues with insurance claims and a speeding ticked from the car that used my plate before. As well it is close to impossible to see age and history of a car.
For the UK plates something interesting (but very complicated) is forgotten. 0:38 “Northern Irish plates are different, so this is about Great British plates”. And later, the area codes pre 2001 seem random.
Well, when the first reg plates were issued, they were 2 letters and up to 4 numbers with the first 2 letters being the area code. And this went as simple as first issued was AA, then AB, AC, etc. Once an area reached 9999 registrations, a 2nd area code was given. This had an interesting advantage as a larger area had more codes than a smaller one, i.e. Lake District 3 codes, Coventry 7 codes, Reading and Essex both 12 codes. This means all areas go through the systems in roughly the same time.
Once all codes AA to YY (or indeed ZZ) were used up, the system needed to be extended and was changed to 3 letters, 3 numbers. But to not make it even more complicated they stopped issuing more area codes. That is why - as explained in the video - in the 3-letter-block the 1st letter is random while 2nd & 3rd are area code.
Since Lake District is very small in number of vehicles, I think they are a perfect example: Lake District had only 3 area codes, which are AO, HH & RM.
AO shows they were quite early with their first ever registered car, but when Reading had AN, BL, CF, DP etc, Lake District’s 2nd one was only HH. Once Lake District reached RM 9999, the next one was AAO 1 to AAO 999, then AHH, ARM, BAO etc.
But there is something else to obeye, some areas are so big that they thought maybe it was simpler to give them hints. So everything starting with an L is London, as well as most starting with M and Y. Also the X is interesting as they were spare plates should one region run out too early. Again starting with X. London had some codes outside the L*, M* & Y*, these basically could even be identifying regions of London with a lot of South-East starting with G as well… But basically once ALA to AYY was issued it carried on with BLA to BYY, CLA etc….
Not finished here, Wales was incorporated with England, but Scotland had a special identifier again, every code containing an S was for Scotland. See “containing” rather than “starting”. So LB is London but BL is Reading. But then BS is Inverness, SB is Glasgow, both Scotland. CS is Glasgow, SC is Edinburgh, you get the drift?
It maybe is weird that in the 3-letters the middle one is most important. But it would have been a nuisance without profit to even issue 3-digit area codes. So an easy guideline is: Most smaller places only have 12 or less letters, so it is easy to memorise them. But with very few exceptions: xIx & xxI = Ireland, xLx = London, xSx & xxS = Scotland, xXx = spare plates, xYx = London, xZx & xxZ = Ireland....
Now in the video: “Northern Ireland has a separate system” & “The letter I was not issued to not mistake it with a number.” Not 100% correct, yet super fascinating:
When the system started in 1903 Ireland was not split yet and part of the Kingdom. So Ireland as a whole originally had the same system and as with Scotland and the S, Ireland were issued all plates containing an I or a Z. AI, AZ, BI, BZ, IA, IB, ZA, ZB etc…
Of course at some point the Republic of Ireland was formed and they started their very own system. Northern Ireland in turn kept the area codes they were given, but they never took on the Letter of the Year but went 4-digit numbers instead. So yes, the Northern Irish system is different, but it does originate from the British system! So Belfast has 12 codes, same number as Essex or Reading, they all contain an I or a Z. Easier example is Antrim, which has 4 codes: DZ, IA, KZ & RZ. Many rally cars were registered there (for various reasons, the easiest one Sydney Meeke = Kris’ dad for a time prepared Manta 400s for GM UK), so groupB Nissan 240RS chassis 1 (of 200) = UIA 4275, Jimmy McRae’s BRC winning Manta 400 = WIA 5958, famous Prodrive BMW M3 = ADZ 9667…. you see there is a connection. Not easy to spot as Northern Ireland did not adopt the letter of year, but the area codes being the 2nd & 3rd letter of the 3-letter-block and not clashing with any (up to 2001) English, Welsh & Scottish area codes is absolutely no coincidence!
Complicated but a fascinating system, so I hope for who is interested in this system, this was entertaining additional info.
While at it, maybe suggestions for future videos:
I am German and we Germans do everything by numbers. Yes, I guess I do, but exactly that is why British systems fascinate me! German reg plates are simple, but since often transferred they bear problems and do not allow research. How about:
A video on UK road numbers?
I love them. The area in Germany were I live we have the A8, the A620, the B406, the L157, where does this make sense? Answer, it doesn’t! In UK it circles around London, to the North 1, East 2, South 3, West 4. There are 5 and 6 too, but once you cross the border to Scotland they change to 7, 8, 9! If you are in Wales you find roads starting 4+5, but if you are on roads starting 7-8-9, you are even guaranteed in Scotland! It goes even further, I used to live around 70 miles West of London and we had roads like A4074, B4009… Go further West (along the M4 if you like) and in South Wales you find the A470, the A48, so the number of digits tells you how big the road is and the 2nd number after the 4 roughly tells you how far away from London it is. That means in UK the road numbers give you a rough idea where in the country you are, excellent, it is the Germans that have the utter mess!
A video on UK post codes?
Maybe only indirectly connected to cars and driving. But in Germany I live in the post code area 66663. Despite being 5 digits, it is an area of 30,000 people and this is still small!
In UK I used to live in OX10 (space) 9QR. Sounds way more complicated. But OX is Oxford (so I already know I am in Oxfordshire), 10 is Wallingford, 9 the village near Wallingford I lived in (10_0 & 10_1 would be Wallingford itself) and the QR is like a raster. It was a small road, maybe 40 houses, yet alone this road had QR, QS & QT. So in Germany I spend 10 minutes feeding my sat nav. In UK I just hack in the post code and it is accurate to 10 houses despite only having 1 digit more than the German system = clever!! I love it, yet only very few people know about it I guess?
The crazy thing about the Republic of Ireland is they still used the British system (6 digits max, no year identifier) up until 1987!
@@nlpnt Thanks for you reply! Wasn't it for some time that British reg plates were white front and yellor rear, yet Irish white front and red rear? To have some destinction, but black letters on dark red plates??
I love license plates, spotting ones from different countries, regional and age codes etc
I've lived through the suffix, prefix and current registration formats. So to me, it's second nature (including the Q plate). It's only when you explained it that I realised how muddled it is.
You barely mentioned how they rushed the prefix letter system out of existence, by introducing the 6-monthly registration change before the current system. That further confuses things
I think it's quite hard to explain British number plates to the uninitiated, so well done!
Agreed but I think it would have been much easier to understand if it had been explained chronologically instead of reverse chronologically.
Thanks for explaining, i have noticed at lot UK YT with car content identified cars by number plates. Australia with 6 states n 2 territories all have different colour plates n letters/numbers order. Some states/territories have slogans at bottom of the number plate. Some states/territories have special plates government plates for government vehicles, personal plates, euro style plates, interstate plates for trucks or known as federal plates.
With trucks they have NHVR plates since sometime in 2018, or on older trucks if they have been reregistered since then or needed a replacement plate.
I think WA still runs state plates on trucks/heavy vehicles
Wikipedia has excessive detail if anyone wants to go for a deep dive! Far harder to follow than Twin Cam's description, but for some intrigued it will fill an hour or so!
Great intro to this weirdly interesting topic!
This video needs a million views. No one is providing this kind of information. 💯
Well said🙂
Buses in London could have white on black plates up until around 1985/6. The last I can recall were C reg MCW Metrobuses
I'd always wondered whether the London buses were flouting the rules.
@@LostsTVandRadio not at all. They had quite a few quirks. Certain types, RT, RM were separated chassis and body on overhaul. Put back together using a different body or chassis and often received the registration from another vehicle. And all completely legal! Apparently!
@@discogareth Interesting!!
I think it's not so much that they could, more that they just did, same as the engine and body swapping that used to go on.
@@discogareth A newly-refurbished RM leaving the works would receive the identity of one just entering the works.
Your BMW is in superb condition and that series 3 is THE prettiest version of any 3 series, so congratulations on a beautiful car.
Marvellous! How very British ! Great explanation Ed.
Here in Malta, it's very simple: three letters, a space, three digits. And if you have a custom number plate, like my 'ERR 404', you can transfer it to your next car. Those cost €200.
The first letter indicates when the car was registered (very straightforward: A is January, and so forth). If you decide to get a custom number plate, your VRT (MOT) and insurance lapse in that month.
There are some exceptions, and certain combinations are restricted (such as 'GVP' for the police), but you can look those up on Wikipedia.
The President, Prime Minister and Archbishop have their emblem instead of a number plate, which is pretty cool.
However, you can also get a fully personalised number plate with up to 10 letters and digits, with liberal placement of spaces, for a mere €1500. I've seen cars where the number plate makes up a substantial percentage of the value of the car. Usually you'd find them on Chelsea tractors, though.
But if you lived here, you could get a 'TWIN CAM' number plate!
In the UK the plate your trailer wears goes with the towing vehicle. Saves issues if you can't see the plate on the towing vehicle. Unless you're a farmer. Then your trailer, towed baler or whatever can wear any plate from any of the vehicles owned by you, regardless of whether that vehicle (owned/registered to you) is towing at the time.
In Germany we have regional coding with one, two or three letters in one block then another zwo letters and up to four numbers. You can always tell the place where the car is registered - and if you move you get a new plate. Big citys have one or two letters, rural areas three - so it is always entertaining that we city dwellers invent funny meanings for our friends's plates from the countryside (when they feel uneasy driving in the big big city ;-)
Yours is a a much much better system
One of the quirks is that after 1990 or before 2001 6 character plates were no longer assigned to new cars. If you do find one and it is not a personal plate then it signifies that the car was registered new with a personal plate and thus never gained a unique age-related one of it's own. When the personal plate is transferred off the car a 6 digit one is assigned with the correct age marker so it's easy to tell that the plate is not original at time of first registration. Since 2001 though cars registered with a personal plate initially have a standard number assigned to them but only in the background at the DVLA and won't appear on records until the personal plate is transferred.
That's interesting, although I'm not sure that's true. I bought a new car in Winchester, and put my personal plate on it. When I sold it, it was assigned an Isle of Wight plate (HW), despite never having gone to the Island.
@@cjmillsnun that would be a car registered after 2001 then, the 6 digit thing was dropped on the switch to the current style plates. It only applied for the last decade of Prefix plates.
@@cjmillsnun Since the local offices all closed, re - registrations are no longer geographical; you get allocated one of whichever block DVLA are issuing at the time (from year-end gaps or whole unused series)
That is a crackin piece of info Neil! The only car in the family that had 6 digits was my granda's used 99 Mondeo. He bought it in around 2002 and was the second owner so he would've been the first person to run around with the T plate on it. Weirdly he replaced the plate with his own private plate in 2005 which was also a 6 digit T plate.
funnily enough, i remember the number plate assigned to my father's 1950's morris minor traveller from when i was a child in london the early 1960's. it was sold when we emigrated the canada.
but good old JRX 939 lived on in an old family photo of me washing it at the age of around 4 or 5!
*RX is a Reading plate.
@@onetonlandrover i was born in didcot and the morris was likely purchased around that area
Brilliant video and great explanation of vehicle registration plates
Great video. As an Aussie with in-laws who were originally from Britain this explains a strange story about my wife's grandfather repainting his number plates on his Ford Falcon about 15 years ago. As a born and bred Aussie this really shocked me, and I was concerned about him getting booked for modifying state issued number plates. In all Australian jurisdictions, plates are state issued, and cannot be modified in anyway, so hearing in this video that as long as the plates meet certain standards anyone can produce them that explains why my grandfather in-law saw no issue with repainting his plates.
Something mentioned here in the comments about ex military vehicles sold through official MOD disposal agents was this.
I purchased an ex UK Army Armstrong MT 500 motorcycle. Because it's original date of manufacture was known, it had to be issued with a number plate which would have been issued to a vehicle sold domestically in that year of manufacture.
I had a problem trying to get an MOT certificate after I restored it, the reason given at the time was that because it did not have a UK registration number plate, it could not be taxed or insured. The way round this was apparently to have the motorcycle MOTd under the VIN plate number. Then, once MOT certificate was in place, the vehicle could then be registered with the DVLA (as was), an age related number plate issued, then I could insure it and pay the road fund licence as per the power output.
Talk about convoluted!
A great explanation of the UK licence plate system though, easy to understand and clearly explained.
Insure under VIN
MoT under VIN
Register at DVLA local office
Pay tax
Inform insurer of new Reg number.
Did it many times.
Ex MOD and imports used to be given plates of the current year, can't remember when they stopped doing that
@@ambivalentonion2620 Some time in the 70s...perhaps as late as when the system was computerised??
@@ambivalentonion2620 They stopped doing that in 1983 with the Y suffix letter.
You never forget your first - TUJ 490 was mine.
Here in USA ( Florida ) the plate stays with the person , even when you get a new vehicle. Plus as someone else mentioned a separate plate is used for a trailer. ( per trailer... non transferable!)
This was probably the most interesting video I watched today. I live in Finland and have been "stalking" at the number plates since I was a kid.
I ended up watching this to the end. Nice work
What's odd is all numbers belong to the Secretary of State and can be withdrawn for any reason, though normally it only happens if it's inappropriate and issued in error or became inappropriate over time. A famous example being BO11 LUX that the DVLA sold, then forced the driver to remove it.
Many years back I saw BOL 1K on a Renault and thought at the time how is that allowed 😮
I noticed US youtuber Aging Wheels had BOLLOCKS on his Reliant Robin, but hardly think it is a proper plate :)
was PEN 1 S ever issued?
I loved being on holiday in August as a kid and competing with my brother to spot the most brand new cars. The 90s were a simpler time.
Thank you very much for your detailed explanation. I'm an Aussie in the State of Victoria and our system is a bit different. Also I do hope that you won't mind me saying that in explaining something that I've long wondered about you've also managed to confuse me in equal measure! 🙂
Whats also interesting is that originally, Ireland,north and south, had same reg number system as Britain. Ireland just used letters i and z. So,for instance Dublin used the letters Z,ZA,ZC,ZD and so on. Then,when they were used up,they put the letters A to Y in front,so,for example with ZA, they had AZA, BZA, CZA, and so on. Scotland simply had an S in their similar reg numbers,also using G for Glasgow. London used Q in their similar reg no.plates. Anyone confused?
I wondered about the British system, and now I know. Thanks for explaining.
I had already figured that, like here in the Netherlands, the number plate is registered to the car and stays with it for the rest of its life. The other similarity is that the date of issue of the number plate can be derived, although not directly from the number, it can be looked up. For the vast majority of cars on the road this will tell you their age (just not for those that were imported at a later age). There the similarities end. Since it's merely a chronological issuing system, it holds no other information. They are issued by the Netherlands Vehicle Authority and it does not offer/allow personalisation.
There are, however, distinctions made in the system beteween those for cars and those for commercial vehicles or types of vehicle (like e.g. trailers that have their own number plate). Some letters that appear first in the number (not necessarily at the first position) are reserved for those distinctions.
In Adelaide, South Australia, when personalised plates were first available, a friend of mine (a smart-arse young lawyer who was always fighting the cops and whom the police therefore hated), in defiance of the 'no obscenities' rule, requested the plate TIHS•00. It appeared innocent enough, so was granted and issued.
However, when seen in another car's rear-view mirror, it read OO•SHIT. When the police first encountered it, they tried very hard to have the plate cancelled, but the minor court that heard the matter dismissed the police's complaint.
Lawyer: 1
Cops: 0
My initials are TI..I tried to get the number plate T1 MUB for the same reason.Its not available in the UK though.
Yellow Jag? haha - Just checked EzyReg.
Fascinating video. Thank you. I’ve had lots of different company cars over the years and couldn’t tell you what any of the registrations were but I can always remember the registration number of my dad’s Ford Prefect which he had from the 50s to 1968. It was 3 letters 3 numbers. I enquired about buying the number as personalised plate. Unfortunately I found out the number is scrapped when the car is scrapped. But yeah. Great video!
Ed, you should do a follow-up on how both private/cherished plates and the Northern Ireland plate system/history works - especially as NI plates are a popular private plate option for UK mainland cars!
Here in the US it is relatively easy and inexpensive in most states to obtain a personalized/cherished plate. For example, my first car in NI was a 1973 Wolseley 1300 with the County Antrim reg of GIA478. Unfortunately we let this slip away at the time when the Wolseley was sold for scrap in the late 80s and this plate lived on attached to an Alfa Romeo for some time, before finally lapsing completely.
According to the DVLA (I enquired!), there are no plans to offer lapsed plates again to the market.
So, I did the next best thing - I went to my local motor vehicle registration authority in Florida and verified that GIA 478 was an available combination and paid a mere $100 to have that as my vehicle registration here!
You can't even get a customized license plate in Portugal. Yours are awesome.
That's not the case in every state though - Vermont doesn't allow more than 2 numerals on a personalized plate so they don't overlap with the regular series.
That mg metro in your thumbnail was a one owner car that I personally found and purchased after being parked in the corner of a car workshop for 25 years , glad to see it got restored
One of my best friends bought it! While restoring it, I was the one who helped him pull the engine out and get it refreshed 🙂
Until the changeover in 2001 we were familiar with those time-honoured geographical codes. GL, AF and CV for Cornwall, WP and NP for Worcestershire, FH, AD and DG for Gloucestershire etc.
Unfortunately those codes stay hard wired in our memories so now we tend to misinterpret the 'new' plates.
Bournemouth had EL, LJ and RU. Dorset had FX and PR. Nearly every car anyone in my family had ever owned had one of these.
Can identify with that. Likewise in Oxford we had BW/FC/JO/UD/WL until 2001 ...personally had FBW [Triumph] VFC/EJO/PUD [Rovers] in the 1980-99 period🙂
Isn’t it weird the stuff that sticks in the brain?
YJ being from Dundee stuck with me, despite not being from there 🤔
Fabulously well-explained and presented 👏 Thank you
Thanks for the history lesson. Still a fair amount of information to take in.
Technically Q was used to indicate a vehicle where the age could not be determined, common at one time on ex military vehicles, former breakdown trucks etc.
I've seen military now have a different system yet again. I think it's Number-Number Letter-Letter Number-Number. Often with 3 lines of text, and the old black background plates.
@dcarbs2979 Been that way for at least 25+ years, the last lot of Land Rovers (1998) are in the "new" format (AA11BB)
Q was also used for temporary registrations often on Vehicles belonging to foreign Embassies only here for a year or less or new vehicles that will be exported by driving them to destination country and registered there. Trade plates only recognised in Great Britain.
@@onetonlandrover Of course there is alos the very rare diplomatic plate. A 'D' in the middle where the numbers would /should be on civilian vehicles. Groups of numbers on either side.
They are on a lot of kit cars too.
In North America, plates were often changed annually, you got a completely new number to memorize, and the colours of the lettering and background were often changed as well. There were some pretty hideous colour combinations, ugly in their own right, and they didn’t add anything to the overall beauty of the car. Something that came from this which is pretty cool, is people, predominantly in rural areas where they had barns or sheds, they would nail the old plates to the wall. It made for quite a display, you might see a display reaching back to the 30’s, and it told a story of world history, sometimes intentionally, sometimes not, centennials, bi-centennials, metal shortages in war time. Now, with the vanity plates, it tells you something about owners cleverness, or distinct lack of such.
Connecticut was the first state to issue a permanent license plate in 1948 (aside from WW2 metal-saving temporary measures) although the number stayed with the owner not the car. IIRC Indiana was the last state issuing new plates annually sometime in the early '80s.
I bought my house from my father. I’ve changed many things, but the license plates dating back to the mid-50s are still on the wall of the garage.
Well explained! Glad to have an explanation of the pre-83 system, my Dad, love him, has always slightly overcomplicated that.😅
Our previous system I'd only add the minor foot-note 'X' and'Y' prefix numbers got squidged into 1year (I assume a neat 6months each?) to hasten in the new/current reg' system. I have an X-reg Rover 25 registered in January '01, and my good friend owned one from only a few months later with a Y-reg', that snuck in before the __01 was introduced.
I'm glad you've done this video. I've lost count how many times I've explained this to the younger generation 👍
One slight caution. If you are driving in Spain, Malta or Cyprus you still need the old fashioned style country identifier sticker with UK on it even if you do have the new style plates with a Union Jack and UK on the left hand side. Don't suppose many people take their car to Malta or Cyprus but quite a lot will go to Spain. Not sure why those three countries decided to follow different rules to every other EU country.
I use the magnetic type so that when I'm back driving in the UK I can remove it.
Years ago, had a white Rover Metro with reg. no. M***GCU and parked at a friend's house behind another white Metro, N***GCU. Wonder what the odds are on the same reg. but only the year letter different on the same model & colour car? Still have it on SORN, allegedly less than 300 Metros left.
Exactly video. I used to work for DVLA issuing numbers to dealers and registering new and imported cars. I’m a total number plate nerd and lived that job
IIRC, the issue frequency changed towareds the end of the prefix letter year issues, as they wanted to get to the new system before the old system ran out (i..e. got to Y reg on an anual-issue basis), so X & Y registrations were issued in 6-month intevrals, consequently, there aren't many X or Y plate cars about compared to, say, P, V or W.
Actually this 6 month period started with the S plate from August 1998. So V and W are included within this newer system.
@@Dead_Metal
Ah, OK. Thanks for that.
I knew that something changed around that time.
Interesting video Ed and well explained. Not easy our seemingly bonkers systems that have changed several times. In terms of the older plates and town/city identifiers, local to me in West Yorkshire was HD for Dewsbury, CX as well as VH for Huddersfield and JX for Halifax, none of which you’d call exactly obvious! There again on the latest system G signifies Kent; apparently we all know Kent is referred to as the Garden of England… Personal plates are quite a thing now of course. I quite like the old prefix letter for the date plates for looking a bit less fussy, so have one on my current car. The plate would actually make it 1984, but in reality it’s a 2021 model.
Totally fascinating. And I did not know I could even be interested in knowing this!
Impressive performance to explain the unexplainable! I used to have cars on q plates, bought in germany drove to dover claiming to stay a few months in the uk and the AA provided the plates. parking tickets of course never arrived:)
11:29 wow! This felt personal and I don’t even have black and white plates 😂
If you mean the MG 1100, My Dad drove us to Nice From Newcastle in 1968 in ours, a very nice little car it was too. It took 3 days.
Very well explained - thanks for sharing.
In the case of your MGF P812 CAU, the place identifier is the last two letters AU. These were quite specific IIRC. This format identifies the year of registry by the first letter P and the numbers are random.
Going back further, TBY 233 Y had the last letter defining the year of registry, the last two letters of the three bring the location code BY, and the numbers again random.
The year code started in September, although anything registered in D (CJA 27 D) referred to the year starting in January.
in switzerland, number plates have two letters in front, representing the canton it is registered (BE for Bern, ZH for Zurich, TI for Ticino).
followed by a number between 3-digit and 6-digit. the lower the number, the more they are "worth". most cantons run an online-auction for low-digit or fancy numbers. or you just get a random one for 40.- at registration. plates are stuck to the owner of the car and can be transferred easily to a new car you buy. the odd thing in switzerland is, there are the same numberplates out there for cars and motorcycles, not belonging to the same owner.
Also , up until October 1974 , registration marks were issued by local councils . After this date they were issued by local vehicle licensing offices , set up by the DVLA . Quite a few two letter area codes , were 're issued to totally different areas at this time . For example CF , which was West Suffolk was 're allocated to Reading .
they issued a green log book
Also JM from Westmorland to Reading in 1974.
I did a personal import from Eire in 98, (Toyota IE, got me a hi-spec Camry direct from Toyota Japan, with full EU Warranty). It was full EU Spec & loaded! I did all the paperwork,. What I learnt, was that when I read up about registration in the UK, one had to adhere to the precise year of manufacture. No dodgy deals about a "Newer" Reg number. Years later I learnt from a trip to Kenya, that other countries don't give a dam. So thank you, uk for precise laws.
Square plates also have 1 major usage... Lorries!
All I can add is Gloucester ended in AD for the old style so there was loads of MAD & DAD plates. Newer style plates were prefixed by VU VX, this was to do with the DVLA office headquartered in Worcester and the Roman name of Worcester being Vertis.
Loved it. Numberplate history is right up my street. However, if I had to do a video about Portuguese numberplate a it would be a very long one!
The plate from North East London you held up says it's from West Wickham Garage which is just down the road from me, in Southeast London.
ive wondered how it all works! everyday is a learning day! great video!
On rare occasions the last two letters on the old system, did reflect the town's name, especially in the old County Borough Council days. Here in Bolton we used to have "BN" on our plates. I don't think that was just a coincidence.
In 1986 I bought a 1963 Landrover tow-truck from the Southdown bus company in Brighton. When I viewed it, it had the reg W7- How old must that number have been!. When I took delivery of it, it had a 'year appropriate' 7 digit plate. Of course I was slightly miffed- but I presume the company had retained and transferred these numbers through the fleet since the 1900's.
Its also widely believed that any plates beginning SF are most likely to be undercover police cars in Scotland as most of them come through the same registry office
Aye, I believe that! Used to see a few base model Astra MK4s on SF plates. Black bumpers and two aerials were the main giveaway!
As someone from the US, this whole system is fascinating and completely alien. In the US, plates generally stay with the owner rather than the car.
Interesting - in Zimbabwe, you can chose to sell or keep them and use them on your next car but majority sell car with plates
Thanks for this, very clear and easy to follow 👍🏻
I have a 1959 copy of the book 'The Observers Book of Automobiles'. It gives loads of information on auto related trivia from that time. National and international reg code designations, car manufacturers both UK and abroad with some photos and much more. The "yank tanks" from that period were huge chrome laden monsters and all the individual UK companies listed before they were swallowed up into British Leyland or Rootes. I believe the performance figures of Rolls Royce cars were often just described as 'adequate' without any numbers being given or was that just urban myth. A interesting read if you can find a copy.
In Ontario, our two plates are reflective and for some reason we don’t pay a fee. We also know the front of a car from the back.
Edit: Our plates stay with the owner, not the car. Our plates need to be licensed to the car they are affixed. Our plates are renewed on our birthdays. The plates simply say where and when they were issued.
I don't think knowing the back of a car from the front is unique to Canadia.
Great summary of pretty much all of the quirks and details!
Also, silver on black on cars made after about 72 looks just wrong to me!
Would look pretty sweet on a black Mk.1 Granada.
@@chrishartley4553 to be fair a black Mk 1 Granada would look pretty sweet full stop. Or Mk 1 Granadas most other colours too, come to that!
When the 3 letter system with year identification letter at the end were being issued a couple of combinations were reserved for special issue, GPO for General Post Office vehicles, and MAN for vehicles registered in the Isles of Man, before they moved to a completely different system, unique to the island.
Ed, when did you get a Red BMW, it's parked just to the right of the extension ladder.
ED, I have a old plate hanging up in our garage "in CA USA." The plate is silver on black, its made of aluminum and has QB 9009 on it. What would the history of that plate be? I picked it up at an auto swap meet YEARS ago. Another great watch.
Has anyone noticed that the vast majority of cars reg'd since 2001 (so 99% of what you see on the road) have at least one U V W X Y or Z in the last 3 letters? Once I spotted it, I couldn't stop seeing it everywhere! The current system is handy though. You can sometimes know what sort of a life the car has had by the plate. Buying a relatively new car with a far away area code? Could be higher mileage as it may travel a lot. Buying an 20 year old Yaris in the north of Scotland with SY at the start? It's probably not had many owners, but could be rotten because of the crap weather.
When I was in southern England back in 1993, I did not know about the changing date of the 1st of August, but I had noticed that the letters went up to K. Then, on the morning of the 1st of August, which was a Sunday, I was quite surprised to see an L. Later in the morning I saw a second one. And by the evening I had seen more than 10 licence plates starting with L. It was then that I learned about the rush for the new letter each year. This year I was in England (between Dover and London) in September 4-9. I was quite surprised that during several days, cycling along busy roads I had not seen a single 74. Is there no rush any more ?
There is also a specific format for drivers of other countries working here for embassies or having other diplomatic status. For these you will see three numbers the letter D or X and then three more numbers which signify the country of the embassy.
Thanks for the explanation . Great video.
I grew up in Warrington in the 70s. ED was the code for vehicles registered in Warrington.
Hence all Warrington Buses having ED plates
And Chester / west Cheshire had FM, so all Crosville buses (including in all of north Wales) were FM. South & east Cheshire had TU, which is why many Rolls-Royces you see in films are TU’s, because of the RR factory in Crewe.
@@arwelp I remember Crosville's FM registrations as well as Chester City Transport, who I worked for for 27 years.
Djizus, what a complicated system !!!
I'm Norwegian, and we got a total different system.
2 letters, as a prfix for where the vehicle is registrated.
5 numbers, starting from 10000
Trailers, mc, tractors and quadbikes got 4 numbers
Wehicles on road
got white backround, and black writing.
Wehicles off road
(snowmobiles, tractors, industrial vehicles) got black background, and yellow writing.
Military got yellow background, black writing (only numbers)
And ambassy owned vehicles got blue background and yellow writing.
It has been like that sins 1972.
Oh, Twin Cam didn’t explain British diplomatic number plates since 1979 - 3 numbers , one letter (D for diplomatic staff, X for non-diplomatic staff of international organisations), 3 numbers. The first 3 numbers are the country or organisation it’s been issued to, alphabetically with additions for countries that became independent after 1979 (some countries are out of place because of changes of name e.g. 281 is DR Congo but was Zaire when the system was set up), so 101 = Afghanistan, 282 = Zambia (end of the original sequence), 330 = Kosovo; 350-399 can be used by any country for security reasons; 600-649 is for visiting royalty; 900-944 are for international organisations in the UK e.g. 917 = United Nations. The final 3 numbers start from 101 for diplomats, 400 for non-diplomatic staff of international organisations, or 700 for consular or other non-diplomatic staff.
The UK has about 20 times the population of Norway, so presumably the national vehicle fleet is 20 times larger, so a more complex system is required to have enough licence plates to go around.
Lets not forget other formats like diplomatic plates and millitery vehicles haveing different letterings
Some further UK reg plate oddities: armed service vehicles having different number/ letter sequences and being non-reflective white on black, diplomatic and embassy having different layout, some with an X in the middle and also motor trade plates being red on white issued to the individual / business rather than the vehicle.
Towards the end of the date prefix series they started changing twice per year, as they were close to running out of numbers in a given year, IIRC. Other quirks: suffix A wasn't universally adopted as some licensing offices still had plenty of plates left in the old system, and suffix E ran from January to August 1967 because they changed the date that year.
Famously, despite the ban on potentially-offensive numbers, the number PEN 15 does exist. It would have been issued from the Truro office if memory serves, and just possibly was an innocent mistake, or maybe someone bribed the licensing officer :D
Excellent video.
I have several "cherished" plates on various vehicles.
It always amuses me though, that the DVLA have a bit of a double standard.
They will encourage you to buy a plate that says a certain word, thing, or sentence if you bunch the letters up. But then, when you buy it and display it spacing it the way you should to make it show the word you bought it for, they then fine you for doing so!!!
A tad hypocritical, methinks.
For example: SHE1K.
Legally, it can only be written and displayed as SHE 1 K.
Or COM1C, that Jimmy Tarbuck had, or MAG1C for Paul Daniels.
COM 1 C and MAG 1 C was how they had to be displayed.
Also, I love it when the pen pushers miss an obvious "rude" one that slips through the net.
Preston licencing office allowed PN15 to be used and I've seen lots of "interesting " combinations.
PN15 BYG. PN15 BOY
PNI5 MAD etc, etc.
When I saw the first one, I remember thinking "Oops, someone messed up there".
Many thanks for a great video.
I pretty much Knew how the Plates worked only You went on to explain it somehow alot simplier. However I was not Aware that they still issued Q Plates 😮 Amazing