My Scruffy Brace Of Xm's

OK got the photobucket thing sorted :-)

Nice wheels on the Mk1. BL reg, obviously registered in the same place as my two.

Peter.N.

BL is Slough. Hmm, wonder who operates there then...

The old Cx turbo's were all EBL's for the press fleet on it's launch and
then there's the NAN numbers too.

Andrew

One of my cars that came over from the UK has a numberplate with 'WNK' at the end of it, that could have been better thought out

I didn't actually realise those three letters meant something, I thought they were just randomised.

No, up to recent times when they brought in the 02 and 52 etc numbering which does indeed have random letters at the end of the plate, all registrations were area specific. Now it is via the first two letters but then it was the last two. For instance DAC the 'AC' being Coventry and CSG the SG being Scotland. Old AA books gave the codings so you could while away may happy hours in traffic jams working out where the other people came from. There would be a sequence for NI too.

Jim

Hi Jim

I still have one or two of those old AA books. As I used to travel quite a bit I got to know many of the suffix's, but as you say, its all changed now. The one letter suffix 'A' started in '63 but not all counties adopted it. In Kent, where I used to live they used four numbers followed by one or two letters, until the 'B' reg started in '64. My mother bought a new Morris 1000 traveller in '63 it was 5695KO.

The new registrations are much more regional than local. W- covers the whole of the westcountry, whereas there used the be different letters for Exeter, Plymouth etc. Kent whch used to be K-, although there were local variations, FN was Canterbury for instance, now comes under the umbrella of G- for 'Garden of England' which covers much of the southeast. The second letter though does give a guide the a more exact location - but it's taking me a long time to learn them!

A work collegue had a Mk2 Zephyr with the registration ASK which I had never seen before, that was in the '50s, it wasn't until we started going to the far north of Scotland that I found it was from Caithness, 750 miles from here, no wonder |I hadn't seen it before, people didn't usually travel those sort of distances then. Strangely though, there was a bus parked at Bettyhill right up on the north coast with the reg 'DV' which actually came fro Devon!

Peter.N.

Peter.N.

This post has been edited by Peter.N. on January 14, 2008 12:40 pm

I see, cheers for that, Jim and Peter, you learn something new every day

Does anyone know where 'G323 WNK' is from then?

Ciarán

'NK' is from Hertfordshire Ciaran. I did'nt remember it, I just looked it up in my 63/64 AA book!

Peter.N.

I did check and DBL is Reading, if I remember correctly. YBL is London.

I did check and DBL is Reading, if I remember correctly. YBL is London.

Quick google, this site is the one I used before

http://www.wolfbane.com/vreg.htm

Peter, they introduced a "new" system in 1974 apparently. Wrong about London in last post, sorry.

Yeah, I like the wheels too.

Yep, I just looked in my 63/64 AA book again, and it says Berkshire.

Peter.N.

From memory, my CX was G234ANK. Horrible car

Thanks Peter
You shouldn't have mentioned the book, I probably would have believed that you knew all the prefixes!

We don't get very many English reg cars here obviously, and while I'd seen a few obscure letter combinations before, this was the first time I'd come across 'WNK'. I'm sure people cars behind utter something that sounds a bit like that if I ever make a mistake and pull out in front of them

Ciarán

So what does the first letter signify? Does it change randomly?

Yes the first letter is random, loosely related to the time of registration, the second and third letters denoted the location but didn't always follow the same pattern. For instance, most with the second letter 'K' were Kent registered but KA-KD were Liverpool and after KT they were in various places. If they only had two letters they were the place indicator, and sometimes only one that completely broke the rules, some of the four numbered '63 Kent registerations ended with 'D'.

Peter.N.