General Sporting Registrations???

[Highlander]

I noticed on Quatermass's pic his registration started with SB55 as does my wifes, and on our travels we have seen another 4 Sportings, and again the reg starts with SB55.
Is this something to do with the car being a limited edition or is it just that Fiat UK did a block registration?.
Nice colour Q. wife wanted black till I pointed out it was not the easiest colour to keep clean.

 

[jug]

SB is the "local memory tag". the S is for the region, the B is for the DVLA local office. 55 is for cars registered sept 2005 - feb 2006.

in theory every car that was registered in your region (S) using your local DVLA office (B) during the period sept05-feb06 (55) should all be SB55, even a scooter or a ferrari. fiat UK dont really register cars themselves, it is individual dealers who register cars, so a punto with SB55 could have been registered by any dealer who sells puntos and is located in the S region and who uses the DVLA office B as their local one.

in case anyone is wondering there is no meaning to the last 3 letters they are random unique identifiers, I and Q are the only excluded letters in this element of the number plate, which means there are 24 x 24 x 24 possible combinations (13824).

once the dealers in region S who use DVLA office B have registered a total of 13824 within a sixth month period they are then forced to use a different DVLA office, so the reg could change to SC55 for instance, even though the 'local' office is B.

thats that cleared up then

 

[hmallett]

Sounds about right.
They all start with the same letters because they've all been registered in the same area.
Mine starts CW55...
H

 

[Boanerges]

I see a lot of Fiats with W at the beginning which I think is around Slough area from their head office. Anything with S at the beginning I think is from Scotland?
Fiat tend to register a lot in one block then disperse them through the dealer network or lease companies to keep the flow of cars going.

 

[hmallett]

My car was registered by the dealer on the day I picked it up. I know because I had to wait for them to do it!
H

 

[sinnerb]

The link below lists all the tags and area codes etc, might be useful to someone

http://www.dvla.gov.uk/vehicles/regmarks/reg_marks_memorytags.htm