odd number plates

[jami]

I have seen lots of odd formatted number plates out on the roads lately and I was wondering if you guys could shed any light on them for me?
The number plates have three numbers before a single letter then three more numbers, so like this 178X248. From memory this is an actual number plate I saw today. They are like UK ones so Yellow on the back of the car. Thanks guys

 

[Davren]

They are diplomatic plates. The cars are owned by foreign embassies. The first 3 digits indicate the country. 178 in your example is for India.

The central letter can be D for diplomatic staff or X for non diplomatic embassy workers.

 

[Freebo]

What about plates like AAA 1111
Ive seen a few of these around, mainly starting with a 'J'

 

[Davren]

No idea about AAA 1111.

J followed by numbers, eg J12345 is for vehicles registered in Jersey. They should also have the GBJ where we have GB.

 

[jami]

Brilliant thanks Davren It has had me confuzzled for a while now!

 

[dombooth]

What about plates like AAA 1111
Ive seen a few of these around, mainly starting with a 'J'

Northern ireland?

http://www.olavsplates.com/great_britain9.html

Dom

 

[The Beard]

Something you don't see a lot of nowadays is the 'Q' plate which used to be used to denote a vehicle that couldn't have its date of first registration proven, such as a private import or civilianised ex-military vehicle, but most often could be found on kit cars.

The registration numbers, or Vehicle Registration Marks (VRMs) that we now have had a bit of a torturous early life and although they aren't seen much now are still clear in my (sepia toned) memory.

For those interested - if not press the back button now - early VRMs had one or two letters that applied to the licencing office the vehicle was first registered to. For the sake of simplicity I'll stick with the Greater Manchester area. The Lord Mayor of Manchester's car has the number N10, with the first car registered in the city probably being N1.....or conversely, 1N. Once they'd got through the N1 to N9 range of numbers N10 to N99 would have been used, followed by NA1 to NA99 before moving onto a 3 letter code, again using two letters, the latter two as the licencing area. My Dad's first "car" was an Isetta three wheel bubble car with the VRM of 693KEN, which was first registered in Bury.

A couple of years later he'd moved up to a brand new Austin A40 with the number 8416NF which showed yet another change of format and then in January 1963 the government of the day commenced using a suffix started with the letter 'A' and then in 1965 (?) after representations from the motor trade, the new suffix letter change came about on the 1st of August every year instead of 1st of January and it stayed that way until the early '80s when the prefix started to be used instead and finally to what we now know, but with two letters still appertaining to the area of registration.

Well that was interesting wasn't it?

Think I'll go and lie down for a while.

 

[The Beard]

Northern ireland?

http://www.olavsplates.com/great_britain9.html

Dom

BUGGER!! If only I'd seen that link a littler earlier I could have saved myself a load of typing.....and everybody else the pain of reading it.

 

[dombooth]

BUGGER!! If only I'd seen that link a littler earlier I could have saved myself a load of typing.....and everybody else the pain of reading it.

I enjoyed reading it!

Dom

 

[homeward]

...and then in January 1963 the government of the day commenced using a suffix started with the letter 'A' and then in 1965 (?) after representations from the motor trade, the new suffix letter change came about on the 1st of August every year instead of 1st of January and it stayed that way until the early '80s when the prefix started to be used instead and finally to what we now know, but with two letters still appertaining to the area of registration.

Well that was interesting wasn't it?

Think I'll go and lie down for a while.

I thoroughly enjoyed that...!

It reminded me of how, when I was a little boy (in the 1960s...), I used to tick off the two-letter 'area codes' in my dad's AA handbook (whilst simultaneously using my Ladybird book to identify the cars themselves...). We lived in Blackburn, then: so our cars usually had BV on their plates (e.g. our Austin J4 van: which my dad and a friend converted into a six-berth motor caravan: FBV 891D). Those were t'days....

 

[The Beard]

One of the problems with websites though is that sometimes the research they use is flawed and while paperwork is usually more reliable than memory, if you click on one of the links on olavesthingy, that is the one that tells you where a plate comes from, and look at older letter codes, you'll see numerous letter combinations, such as EN, DB, JA that are attributed to Manchester but in fact hail from Bury and Stockport.

Just as various areas and districts had their own local administrative organisations and Corporation bus companies they also had their own Vehicle Registration Offices and therefore their own identifying letters. Some of these have become very popular as personal plates such as EN for Ken or Len; HR for Chis(tine) especially when paired up with a 1, 11 or 111 and S.

I can remember (I think) Derbyshire County Council being embarassed when feminists complained about the use of their of the letters BRA which adorned the front of countless 30 ton stone lorries that pounded up and down the A6 every day. The feminists obviously had no sense of irony as after years of eating bacon sarnies mid morning and a full fry-up every lunchtime it would be the drivers who had to wear that kind of foundation garment.

 

[colin79666]

Argh sorry. Meant to like the above post but hit the wrong link with my finger on my iPad.

 

[The Beard]

Argh sorry. Meant to like the above post but hit the wrong link with my finger on my iPad.

Pah, Luddites like me would never make that kind of mistake.

SMASH THE MACHINES!!! Well not mine obviously.

 

[The Beard]

I thoroughly enjoyed that...!

It reminded me of how, when I was a little boy (in the 1960s...), I used to tick off the two-letter 'area codes' in my dad's AA handbook (whilst simultaneously using my Ladybird book to identify the cars themselves...). We lived in Blackburn, then: so our cars usually had BV on their plates (e.g. our Austin J4 van: which my dad and a friend converted into a six-berth motor caravan: FBV 891D). Those were t'days....

Brilliant! Ladybird and Observer books. Who needed the Internet.

Mind you, turning a J4 van into a SIX BERTH! Holy Smoke, did you all sleep standing up? Nowadays we wouldn't put that many berths into a van that small, but like you say, them were t'days.

And you try telling the young people of today that.....and they don't believe you.

 

[homeward]

Mind you, turning a J4 van into a SIX BERTH! Holy Smoke, did you all sleep standing up? Nowadays we wouldn't put that many berths into a van that small, but like you say, them were t'days.

And you try telling the young people of today that.....and they don't believe you.

One bed across the front seats and engine (which was nice and warm, after a long run...!); two in the extending roof (which was pretty cold -- especially during a Scottish 'summer'...); a double across the seats and table in the rear; and one across the back, inside the doors. Thankfully, when it was first built, I was only five; my brother was a toddler; and my sister eight. As we grew up, though -- and taller... -- we eventually moved out into a nice igloo tent, that you could inflate from the van...! By 'eck...!

 

[The Beard]

That brings up an image of one offspring on the engine cover in his underwear and others in the raising roof in Puffa jackets and three pairs of socks

 

[homeward]

That brings up an image of one offspring on the engine cover in his underwear and others in the raising roof in Puffa jackets and three pairs of socks

That's not so far off... -- especially holidaying in the north of Scotland...!

 

[The Beard]

Readin homeward's post about the Austin camper van reminded me (a bit) of a story my Dad told me. The reason the post brought to mind the old man's story was that very few people nowadays convert a van to a motorhome themselves, and even fewer would resort to the following methods to have a 2nd hand wardrobe delivered.

I know it's a bit of a tenuous link, but when my parents were first married in 1956, a paternal great aunt had a wardrobe she wanted to get rid of and as the folks had just moved into a flat this would come in very handy.

So, one Saturday afternoon Dad and his Brother-in-law, Bernard set off to Higher Broughton in Salford to collect said piece of bedroom furniture and after a carefull appraisal of their transport options decided that they would struggle to get it back to Prestwich, about 4 miles, on my Dad's BSA 500 motorbike. This left them only one option.

So it was that after listening to the football results on the radio, at about 5:30 pm they boarded a bus with the mahogany wardrobe, all three of them on the platform. Every time someone wanted to get on or off they had to get off themselves and stand on the pavement until the bus was ready then they re-boarded and carried on with their journey.

Eventually they got to the flat and manhandled the big piece of hard wood up the stairs and into the flat.

I might be wrong but I can't quite imagine Stagecoach, First Bus or Arriva allowing that.

 

[The Beard]

and one across the back, inside the doors. QUOTE]

It just occurred to me that if you'd had another sibling your Mum would have had to knit a couple of big socks and, if hung from the back doors, could have stuck a couple of kids in there