Car Registration Formats Before 1st Of August 1983

[Bettyboo22]

Hi ,

Does anyone know what the car registration formats were like before 1st august 1983 ?

Any Help Will Be Great !

Thanks

[sddsddean]

In the mid 30's reg's were standerdised to the form ABC123. By the 50's they had run out of numbers, so they changed to 123ABC. Having run out of numbers once, someone thought ahead a bit and in Aug '65 they changed to ABC 123 A. The last letter would be changed each year (but I, O, Q, U and Z were not used). Obviously after 20 years they ran out again, so did them the other way, A 123 ABC. Prefix letter changes increased to 2 a year in '99, so in 2001 the new version of AB 51 ABC was introduced. If my maths is correct, the way they will change them will keep this system going for 50 years.

[kempie]

There is a slight error in the above explanation.

The format ABC 123A was introduced in January 1963 but to alleviate the rush of new car sales in the period immediately following Christmas it was later decided to move the change to the next year identifier to August, a month which had traditionally shown poor car sales. This change occured in 1967, therefore the registration year identifier suffixes ran as follows:

A - 1st Jan 1963 to 31st Dec 1963
B - 1st Jan 1964 to 31st Dec 1964
C - 1st Jan 1965 to 31st Dec 1965
D - 1st Jan 1966 to 31st Dec 1966
E - 1st Jan 1967 to 31st Jul 1967
F - 1st Aug 1967 to 31st Jul 1968
G - 1st Aug 1968 to 31st Jul 1969
etc.

[Bettyboo22]

You two are amazing thanks :0)