Car Licence Plates - Do they tell a tale?

[saintjohnny]

I heard that not so long ago, you could tell where a car had been made by the letters on the licence plate. Is this true? If so, which plates correspond to which places of manufacture?

[vehelpfulguy]

Not where a car has been made, but where a car hs been registered, big difference.

[dannydingbat]

In America, you can tell where a car has been made by the numbers on the VIN plate on each car. It may be the same here.

[funkymoped]

could tell where a car was registered from the three letters in its number plate.

never heard anyone say you could tell where it was made from a VIN plate number before, but logic says that it should/would....

[tubeway]

The VIN plate will identify the country of manufacture - an many other things if you know how to decode it

The first letter indicates the country of manufacture .All cars made in GB start with the letter S - Germany is W - Japan is J - USA is 1 or 4

The next digit is the manufacturer - F - Ford

The 11th digit shows the factory where the car was made but this is set by the manufacturer.

When I was in the motor trade I could identify most cars by a VIN number - and predict most of the VIN number from seeing the car. I have moved on and am not so sad now.

[sddsddean]

For the modern system ( AB 52 DEF), the AB bit is the Local Memory Tag followed by the Local Identifier, so AB comes from Peterborough (see this list http://www.dvla.gov.uk/vehicles/regmarks/reg_marks_memorytags.htm )

Each memory tag(except K) has a name as well, but I can't remeber them all (I'll see if I can find the publication that has them), but from memory they are

A Anglia

B Birmingham

C Cymru (Wales)

D Deeside

E Essex

F Fens and Forest

G Garden of England

H Hampshire

K no name allocated

L London

M Manchester

N not sure Newcastle or NorthEast I think

O Oxford

P Preston

R Reading

S Scotland

V severn Valley

W West Country

Y Yorkshire