early registration numbers

Tom ( snipped-for-privacy@address.invalid) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

It could be an age-related, they tend to be "obvious", as they're from several series that never really got issued back when they were current.

What are the letters?

I've got a vague memory (which face it, could be wrong!) that there were some registrations issued in 1962/63, before the 'A' prefixes, where the numbers and letters were reversed as you describe.

It's not mentioned but thanks for the link, the letters are JLC.

The message from Tom contains these words:

The order will tell you nothing. FWIW my 2nd car, a 1955 Vauxhall, was

849 DNO. Another, a 1952 Riley was LKV 915 (I think).

If the original number had been transferred you would have either a suffix A number, or, if done recently, a non transferable number. However if the number now on the car is someones cherished number that has been abandoned for some reason the log book will not mention it. AFAIK the only way to find out if the number is the original is to ask the DVLA.

I think I am correct in saying cars imported in recent years will carry a number from a particular Scottish series but I can't recall which one.

Personally I can't see it matters a damn whether the number is original provided it is appropriate for the year in question and I tend to think anyone asking the question is really trying to establish whether that can split the car and number if they bought it. Any registration number without a year letter seems to have at least some value these days.

Incidentally even if the number is the original one it can still be non transferable. I think the DVLA will insist on making it non transferable if the number is restored after it was wiped from their records and when my private plate was transferred recently the original number was restored to the previous car but made non transferable. Presumably the DVLA was narked that I hadn't put it on a certificate and paid them £25 pa for 7 years (or whatever) for the privilege of reserving a totally nondescript number. (OWR 330N IIRC).

I've just read something similar here:

Dateless British Marks

When the one- and two-letter combinations ran out, an extra letter was added to the start of the plate and the format, now referred to as Dateless British Marks, and it became XXX 999. When areas ran out of combinations they simply reversed the order of number and letters to give the Reversed Dateless British Marks format of 999 XXX.

And according to this LC is Greater London,

Which would have a lot of cars so that seems to add up.

Tom ( snipped-for-privacy@address.invalid) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

LC is a NW London issue, so it's likely to be original.

Funnily enough, no. London only got around to ###ALC in 1960, so ###JLC would be some time after that. It sounds as though the car in question has lost its original registration number for some reason and acquired this one at a time when the DVLC were less amenable to issuing age related numbers than they are now.

Ron Robinson

Was the extra letter definitely allocated alphabetically by date? any chance they used different letters for different areas within London or something?

My first car was a 1957 Standard, registered in London, and that had numbers followed by letters. I lived in London then, and ISTR that registrations either way round were considered normal.

Jim

In message , Jim Warren writes

Indeed they were. My father had a '55 Morris Oxford Series 2 (355 GMM) (Middlesex reg.) and that was followed by a '64 (IIRC) Series 6 Oxford (808 NTM) (Bedfordshire reg.). Many of the London buses introduced during that period had registrations in the 999 XXX format too.

There were also registrations in the format 9999 XX (and even 9999 X) being issued in the '50s and early '60s. IIRC some councils/local registration offices continued to issue non-year-letter registrations in these formats until told to change to the new system by TPTB.

The first letter of the three always went alphabetically IYSWIM. My old Motor Trader Handbook from 1961 doesn't list ###BLC so presumably they hadn't got around to it before the end of 1960 when the book was published. Other areas who ran out of the original format had changed to the reverse one in 1954 or so. The extended change over period was presumably because the original registration system gave the licencing regions allocations of letters (the last pair of letters, London having most of the L* series) more or less in accord with their populations at the time. About half a century later things had changed a bit, not many people were registering cars in the middle of London, but an awful lot were in the areas around it, which is why Middlesex, Essex and other places found they had to go onto the new system several years before the centre of London. The same happened around other big cites as well.

Demography, innit?

Ron Robinson

The message from Andrew Marshall contains these words:

I would be surprised if there where any single letter registration numbers issued as late as the 50s. Even 2 letter series were rare although not I think non existent. When I moved here in 1978 my next door neighbour had an early 2A Landrover (IIRC the S2 was introduced in

1958) with a 2 letter, 4 number registration, probably HG series (relatively local) though I couldn't swear to the second letter.

My primary source of information on registration marks is an old AA Handbook (64/65) which includes the following information. "Future registration numbers will carry an extra letter which will signify the year of registration. They will be brought into use as councils complete their present series." I thought that by 1965 (suffix C) all registrations had a year letter but ISTR someone claiming on this ng that the 1966 was the last year registrations without year letters were issued.

The simple year concept didn't last long of course. Suffix A wasn't introduced until February 1963 (so only 11 months) and Suffix E was truncated at 31st July 1967 driven by the specious notion that the motor trade would sell more new cars if the pathetic pricks who just had to have the newest registration available would be more likely to part with their money if the trigger for change was in the middle of the summer rather than the middle of winter.

In message , Roger writes

I quite frequently see a certain Land Rover at vintage rallies. Out of pure curiosity, I googled for its registration number and 'land rover' and found:-

There were a few which continued into the late 50s, I believe, though I have no confirmation of this.

That may well be the case; I do know the registration date of my father's '64 Oxford, as he passed it on to me and I drove it for a few months before it had to be withdrawn and scrapped due to tinworm.

The expense of the potential purchasers' summer holidays being presumed to be less than that of their end-of-year ones, perhaps. Daft, isn't it?

Don't think it was HG as they were Mar 1930 to Sep 1948. Could have been HA, HB, HJ, Hk, HL, HN, HP or HZ all of which were in use in the early

1960's. HB was issued by Merthyr Tydfil and lasted from April 1908 to August 1958 - not a high rate of issuing. HA issued by Warley seems to have been the last of the 2 letter H# plates and that lasted until July 1964.

I had a Ford Anglia 7307 WF and that series was current from Jan 1960 to June 1961 when it was replaced by ABT xxx.

There is an amazing amount of info in Noel Woodall's book "Car Numbers

1904-1974" published (of course) in 1974 and long out of print.

Malcolm

The message from "Malcolm" contains these words:

I picked HG on the basis that it felt slioghtly familiar and Burnley isn't very far away even if it isn't in Yorkshire. However Wakefield (HL) is probably just as close and when all is said and done the LR could have travelled so distance from its original home in its first perhaps 20 years of life.

FWIW I owned (mostly serially) 7 - 8 cars with registrations without year letters and all were 3 and 3 registrations.

My first car was a '54 MG ZA with a two letter three number plate, and it was original.

The message from Andrew Marshall contains these words:

That has just got me confused. Where in Essex did they register so few cars that they were still issuing single letter registrations in 1957?

For what it's worth, I owned the following with original registration numbers:

1957 Austin A35: KPR 145 1959 Hillman husky: 442 GYA 1962 Ford Cortina: 3799 BH

Why is it that I can I remember those numbers instantly, but not the date of my wedding anniversary?

In message , Roger writes

I've no idea. I can only surmise that they had a dig-around in their files, and found they had some numbers left in an odd series that for whatever reason they hadn't used up, and decided to allocate them all before moving to year-letter plates.