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The
Development of the Car Registration System
1903 was the year
The Standard Motor Company was founded by Reginald
Walter Maudslay. Finding a name for the
Coventry-based business was not a difficult task
as Mr Maudslay had a simple philosophy - all
components of his cars must be tried, tested and
be of a reliable standard.
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was also the year of The Motor Car Act,
which saw the start of the car
registration system. With the increasing
popularity of automobiles, it had become
evident to the British government that
cars needed to be traceable in the event
of accidents or crime. From 1st
January 1904, buyers of all cars were
required to register their cars and
display number plates. This would have
included the very first Standard, the
Motor Victoria, which was produced in
1903.
The
Early Days
The
earliest car registrations, which were
painted onto plates, were dateless.
Therefore, |
Registration
plates would have been required on this
1907 Standard 30Hp |
unlike today, the
age of a car could not be deduced from the
Original Registration System. This system,
consisting of a letter code denoting the issuing
authority, and a sequential identification number,
ran until 1932.
Combinations for
the early plates ran from A1 to YY9999 and,
although allowing for many combinations, they
eventually began to run their course due to the
steady increase of the manufacture of automobiles.
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A
Standard Little 9 |
By
1932, when the popular Big Nine and Little
Nine models were rolling off the hugely
successful Standard production line, the
car registration numbers sequence had to
be extended. The new form consisted of
three letters and three numbers, ranging
from AAA1 to YYY999. By the 1950s, when
the patriotic Standard Vanguard was
introduced (named after Britain’s only
surviving modern battleship), some areas
required this scheme to be further
extended by reversing the format, so
registrations ranged from 1A to 9999YY. |
The
System Develops…
| 1963
was the year the last Standard "badged"
car, the Ensign De Luxe, was introduced.
"Standard" now meant
"basic" so the company decided
to call all its cars Triumphs.
In this
year, car registrations also saw a change.
A newly devised sequence emerged, which
also saw the start of age identifiers.
This was achieved by placing a letter at
the end of the registration. Car buyers
were able to recognise the age of an
automobile with a quick glance. |
Standard
Ensign |
This started with
the letter A in 1963, and changed letter
consecutively through the years.The regional
identification letters and sequential ID number
were kept and so the new range was AAA1A-YYY999Y.
By the early
1980s, although the suffix system had worked well,
the possible combinations had once again come to
an end and another new format was required.
Moving
Forward…
In 1982, the
prefix system was introduced, which was a reversal
of the previous system. The year indicator now
came at the beginning and ranged from A1AAA to
Y999YYY. Therefore, if one had purchased the last
Triumph model, the Acclaim, in early 1984 (its
last year of manufacture), the letter A would have
featured at the beginning of the number plate.
Today
September 2001
saw the introduction of the Current UK System, due
to the previous system, once again, becoming
exhausted. The new system, which could potentially
last until 2099, consists of a "local memory
tag", which is a two-digit, regional
identifier, followed by a two-digit year
identifier. Finally, each registration ends with
three unique serial letters.
March and
September are the two months of issue per year.
Presently, if issued in spring, the two-digit year
identifier starts with 0, and if issued in autumn,
it starts with 5. The second digit indicates the
year of manufacture. Therefore, if the number 57
follows a car’s local memory tag, this means
that the registration was issued in September
2007. In 2010, March’s code will be 10 and
September’s will be 60.
The current
system has been designed to last for at least
fifty years and, as mentioned previously, could
last up until 2099 if a reversal of the system
comes into effect.
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order a free Regtransfers magazine , please
click it.
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With
thanks to Laura Murphy
Private
Number Plates
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