Re: New Page New Page New Page....

["Jeremy Bromley" <jbromley@mail.enterprise.net>]

> From:          Wes Shew <schumi@vcn.bc.ca>
> Subject:       Re: New Page New Page New Page....
> To:            Jeremy Bromley <jbromley@mail.enterprise.net>
> Cc:            corrado-l@teleport.com, scirocco-l@privateI.com,
>                Wes Shew <schumi@vcn.bc.ca>

> On Wed, 2 Oct 1996, Jeremy Bromley wrote:
>
> > P.S. If any UK readers are interested, my G60 (Red '91 H-Reg 85k
>
> I've noticed british car ads always list the " _-reg " with a used car. Is
> this the first letter of the license plate? Does the original license
> plate stay with the car every time it is resold? I've heard people pay
> big money at auctions for certain letter plates, what makes them so
> precious? In America you get a new plate every time a car has a new
> owner. And if you want a personalized plate you just apply for one and pay
> $50+/- . Lemme no

It's a funny ol' game over here in the UK. When a new car is
purchased it is given a new registration plate which it (generally)
keeps for life. Currently this starts with a yearly prefix (which
runs from August-July) H is 1990-1991, J 1991-92, K 92-93 etc. etc.,
you then get three numbers, and then three letters which give a
general impression of which county the car was first registered in.
My Corrado has H for 1990-91 (June 91), 748 which is just the
sequential number and YYU which means it came from Central London.
The Scirocco is A (1984) 259 (sequential number) and UYV (again
Central London. What you sometimes find is that around certain areas
you find the same last letters appearing again and again. (Two
"favourites" around where I live are DRY and GAY (ho-hum))
However, now for the complicated bit. There are some important
changes recently (in the last three or so years) detailed below.
1. Before  (erm, has to work this one out... 1983, I think) the Prefixes
were suffices, so you just reverse everything. Therefore my Land-Rover,
a 1974 Series III, has the
registration PPG 433 L. PPG (I think) is from Lincolnshire, 433
(sequential number again) and L (1973-74). To get you even more in a
tizzy so far as older classic cars go, between A and E registration
the years ran from January to January, with E starting in Jan (can't
be bothered to work this one out, I think it was 1967) and finishing
in July of that year. So E registration ones are the rarest.
2. Now for another difficult bit. Before all these suffixes and
pre-fixes came along, we just had letters (area codes) and numbers
(sequential), usually the letters coming first, but not always. So
any car made before 1963 (? I think) just had letters and numbers on
them.
To give some idea of how the big-money side of things came about,
first you have to understand that, here in the UK, there is only one
type of plate, so you don't get London Plates, or Liverpool plates
etc. (well, not obviously) and so only 1 person in the country can
have any registration. Secondly, all plates have to follow these
strict boundaries. It's got to be either  L 000 LLL (L-Letter
0-Number), LLL 000 L, LLL 000,  or 000 LLL. You getting the picture
now....?
So if you wanted to have your plate spell, WES'S, you'd have to have
something like WES 5 (probably about UKP2,000), and put a little mark
on the plate (it's illegal to put apostrophes in), or say WES 1,
which would probably set you back something like UKP5,000, and then
only if you could find it!
The problems to face are that there are only a limited number of
plates around, and not all numbers have been issued, or are even
available. For instance, a famous British Comedian (can't remember
who) has got registration COM1C, but a famous British Magician could
not get MAG1C as it was never issued.

Tricks of the trade, so to speak are to  mess around with the spacing
of the numbers and letters. So, for
example, the next Corrado I'm buying has the registraion A 60 VW
(which, as it's a G60, seems pretty smart, and probably worth approx
UKP 1,500). This is made up of A 6 OVW, but spaced wrongly.  Although
this is illegal, it is reasonably well tolerated in this country, one
of the other guys in the Corrado Club has the registraion B16 GGO,
but the way he has put it it comes out as BIG G60. He paid about £500
for this. These are "cheap" examples, at the other end of the scale,
I recently saw advertised the registration 1VVV (about as close you
can get to 1 VW) for UKP5,000, and a friend's grandfather has the
registration 1 DAY for which he has been offered a six-figure sum,
but stolidly refuses to part with (it's currently on a Mercedes 190
by the way).
I hope this hasn't confused anybody too-much. Bit of a rambling
explanation, but all good fun. So, now you might understand why
plates are so rare and expensive here in the UK.
Jeremy R. Bromley (Events Manager, Corrado Club of G.B.)
                                      jbromley@enterprise.net
-------------------------------------------------------------
-1992 Corrado G60 (AMD chip, VW Motorsport Pulley, Aqua Blue)
--1985 Scirocco Storm (1.9 155bhp, Cosmos Blue)--------------
---1973 Land Rover S.III 88" (0-60? Apparently!, Pearl blue)-
----1981 Mini 1000 (Girlfriend's shed, Black)----------------
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