Black & Silver Number Plate Rule Changes

uk66fastback said:
My blood just ran cold ... :D

Edit: as an aside, I wonder how many S30s had black and silver plates when new in this country.

I'd venture possibly none!
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Well mine certainly had Black and Silver plates when I purchased it. They had been on it for some time as it had the second owners name on it.
 
Ped said:
My Zed (built late 1979) would technically still qualify for the old black & white plates, but I think it would look ridiculous.

Our family car bought new in 1971 (Hillman Avenger) had the raised black plastic lettering as your Mk1. I remember my dad swapping the rear yellow with black plastic lettering one for a flat 'new style' reflective one, I guess there must have been a change in the MOT requirement. I think anyone buying a new car back then would have seen the old black and white ones as dated.

As a side note; anyone remember these stamped ally horrors from the 80s? I binned this one off the front of the zed. This style always reminds me of Ford Sierras for some reason? This would be the period correct look for my motor, but not a nice one.

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Indeed, we used to sell ex Gord motor Company cars in the 80’s and they all had these cheap old tin plates
 
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uk66fastback said:
You think the original looking plate on viper’s escort is tacky?! Really?
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No seriously I never liked that style of plate, not sure they were even around for that long? They for some strange reason remind me of Austin Maxis or Princess, why I can’t say.
 
MaximG said:
But its not wrong at all, it has been decided and legislated that Black and Silver plates are for Historic vehicles end of. Some people just cant move on and stop living in the past.
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As stated in the link, this was a mistake and is being corrected. Unfortunately the DVLA are leaving the 73 to 80 cars with the option of black plates.
 
Mr.G said:
As an aside, does anyone know what a red border would have meant in the early 70s around a rear reflective plate?
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Pretty sure that meant it was for export (no VAT?) you were allowed to drive it in the UK for 12 months I think, then it had to go abroad. The red made that clear to officialdom so if it was seen on the road after 12 months you were in trouble. Not sure what would stop you changing the plates though. Probably an issue when the rfl was due for renewal too.
 
Bazzateer said:
Pretty sure that meant it was for export (no VAT?) you were allowed to drive it in the UK for 12 months I think, then it had to go abroad. The red made that clear to officialdom so if it was seen on the road after 12 months you were in trouble. Not sure what would stop you changing the plates though. Probably an issue when the rfl was due for renewal too.
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Many thanks for that info.

My theory is that he planned on going abroad then didnt so he settled up the taxes and then never bothered with changing the plate. Perhaps he was planning on somewhere else RHD and in the vicinity like Malta or Cyprus.
 
Bazzateer said:
The 72 is correct, although reflective were available also. The 74 would never have had black plates so indeed it looks wrong to me.
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So your telling me when you clock a plate L looks right but M doesn’t, on your bike.
 
MaximG said:
So your telling me when you clock a plate L looks right but M doesn’t, on your bike.
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M reg was never issued with a black plate so yes, it looks wrong to me. I'm not saying it's illegal, just that it looks wrong to me. The legislation that has allowed black plates on 73-80 was a mistake, as detailed in the OP's link. The only bike I have is a pushbike which has no plates so not sure why you mention it?
 
MaximG said:
So your telling me when you clock a plate L looks right but M doesn’t, on your bike.
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Ha marmite plates.

I can understand that on a car like Vipers escort the plates he has look right rather than black plates. But then I would look at MaximG’s landy and think yep, looks good. At no point would I think there such a shame that’s a 1977 landy those plates look all wrong on that.

If that bugged me (and actually I would love a perfect unmolested car which mine is not) I would have to make sure everything was correct. Surely on our cars the one of the biggest non period correct change is most people with later cars remove the bumpers and replace them with earlier ones, I can’t really see that being any different to the plates.......and yep like that as well.
 
Bazzateer said:
M reg was never issued with a black plate so yes, it looks wrong to me. The legislation that has allowed black plates on 73-80 was a mistake, as detailed in the OP's link. The only bike I have is a pushbike which has no plates so not sure why you mention it?
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The only reason why this is being changed is because of the Brexit changes. If it wasn’t for that they wouldn’t have bothered.
 
MaximG said:
The only reason why this is being changed is because of the Brexit changes. If it wasn’t for that they wouldn’t have bothered.
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Not the only reason at all (correcting a mistake is the reason), but I'd agree it's happening at this time to coincide with the changes brought on by leaving the EU.
 
Bazzateer said:
Not the only reason at all (correcting a mistake is the reason), but I'd agree it's happening at this time to coincide with the changes brought on by leaving the EU.
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If they were that bothered they wouldn’t have taken 6 years to change it.
 
Pondo said:
Surely on our cars one of the biggest non period correct change is most people with later cars remove the bumpers and replace them with earlier ones, I can’t really see that being any different to the plates.......and yep like that as well.
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In my view it’s very different to the plates as while to the informed the bumpers are an obvious update, to the bloke in the street the change is not noticeable. Due to the more visual aspect of letters and the way the brain interprets that, a plate change is a lot more noticeable I would say ...
 
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