The Joys of Personal Registration Numbers

There are many registration number resources on the web. They range from articles, to web sites, including discussion groups, to fully searchable databases. Starting with a little history to get the facts straight in my own mind, this is an article dedicated to those clever uses of form and layout that rely on dyslexia and mind games to make you think of their message for yourself. They may even beg the questions -

• Did that just say what I think it just said?
• How did anybody get it to say that?

Maybe even -

• Why would anyone want it to say that?

When did it all start ?

The potential for personalised plates in the United Kingdom was heightened in 1963 when the British Government's vehicle licensing authority began to prepare for the time when they ran out of the usually three letter plus three number group combinations that gave registrations such as ABC123 or 789WXY.

Combinations with fewer characters had always been available but not easily transferred. Imported American cars often needed short registration numbers in order to fit a plate with standard size UK fonts into the highly sculpted space designed to accommodate a normal US license. The use of the letters I & Z Was restricted to Northern Ireland, whose plates generally resembled those from the Republic of Ireland. Combinations including the letter Q were issued to vehicles temporarily imported into the UK and intending to revert to their country of origin.

When the licensing authority changed the format a suffix letter at the end of the plate indicated the year the vehicle was registered as new. For example, if a car had been first licensed in 1963, it carried an A at the end of its plate, resulting in ABC123A, etc. When the year letter suffix system was introduced the font size had to be reduced to allow the seven characters to fit into the space of the previous six. If the age could not be proved or the complete vehicle was a combination of major parts of several others of varying ages the year letter became Q!

In 1965, paying for particular licenses really became news worthy. A gentleman from Birmingham was randomly and routinely issued with the next available combination for his new Austin Cambridge saloon, COM1C. Jimmy Tarbuck, Liverpool comedian and self anointed golf legend was reported to have paid the price of a quality detached family home to transfer the index mark to his Rolls Royce. An Urban Legend that Mr. Tarbuck bought or better still won in a golf bet the registration from Max Bygraves soon grew up. Like most Urban Legends it is short on detail like where did Mr. Bygraves acquire the number, was he ever seen with it on his own car or is it all just one-upmanship?. Because I remember the news article in the press I prefer to go with the gentleman from Birmingham.

The next step

At the end of the alphabet the vehicle licensing agency simply mirrored the combination prefixing the letter representing the date of manufacture to the front to make A123ABC, etc.. This created even more sellable plates, spawning a whole industry of registration dealers. Finally waking to the revenue earning potential the Government's vehicle licensing agency began charging extra for even quite bland combinations along the lines of prefix - low number - three letters. Other more saleable words and names were held back to be auctioned, some that did escape found their way into private auctions and dealerships. Anything that the authority thought might be rude or offensive was not issued.

At a 1993 Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (Government) auction a mystery buyer is reported to have paid £195,000 for K 1 NGS, sometime in the year 2000 I noticed K 1 NGS on a 7-Series BMW parked outside Kings Estate Agents in the shadow of Windsor Castle.

Pan-European

As the prefix series approached the end of its life plans were hatched for a new “Pan-European” style of registration number.

Area Code

should concentrate letters into localities, the police theory being that witnesses are likely to remember the familiar code and then be spurred on to remember the rest of the registration. The practice is that fleet sales, dealer stock swaps and general mobility of the population make Pan-Europeans no more locally concentrated than the old system.

Date Code

actually changed every six months starting from 51 for late 2001, moving to 02 for early 2002, then 52 for the second half and so on. The date of registration changes is critical to dealers trying to maintain a steady flow of sales without seasonal peaks and troughs for holidays etc. being worsened by customers waiting for a code upgrade.

Random Code

combines with Area Code and Date Code to give the vehicle a unique identity. Letter Z now allowed on UK mainland plates. The holding back of saleable groups and computer generation of the code can result in some tongue twisting combinations

The two, two, three format can limit the scope for word play, but can also encourage creativity to give the sort of messages I described at the start of this article.

Of all the groups my favourite is Reading with their RO series.

RO 51 RED (Rosie Red) is available from dealers New Reg valued at about £7,795.
RO 02 AUS (Roo to Aus) is a bargain from the same source at £694
RO 04 OOR a palindromic bargain at £494

The perils and pitfalls

In the early days of registration transfers a speech was made by a guest at a dinner hosted by The Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) expressing concern that altered characters in a registration number could lead to difficulties with vehicle identification. The Jobsworths at DVLA took this out of context and miss-quoted the sentiment as the Police objecting to all transferred registrations. As a result every transfer request was heavily scrutinised and rejected for minor errors and everything not being exactly perfect. Rejection could lead to numbers being declared void and unavailable for use resulting in the loss of the combination and any money paid for it. A meaningless 1963 A-prefix plate might be offered in its place.

With the advent of registration dealers and number selling direct from the DVLA transfers became much easier, but by no means guaranteed to succeed. The issue now of course was money. The chances of getting a personal looking plate by pure serendipity are very slim.

The newest digital speed cameras use Optical Character Recognition (OCR). It is likely that road tax checking cameras will use this technology too. Modified lettering and slants confuse the OCR so expect prosecutions for having illegal plates to increase as this technology rolls out. Construction and Use legislation has already been amended in preparation. Allegedly the fine is now up to £2,000 plus 3 points on the driver’s license, and if the authorities can find who made the plates they can get prosecuted too.

Sometimes I see good combinations that unfortunately upon closer inspection rely on illegal altered characters, making 7 look like 1 etc. If it’s clever I have no objection to coloured screw heads or dealer name stickers helping guide me towards the desired interpretation

							1
	DVLA Approved 1		DVLA Approved 7		cheating 7		Arial Black1

Finaly the examples

Not always noted on the spot when I saw them, but as trusted as memory can be and not in order of date or apeal. There are no reader submissions, no wouldn’t it be funny if we could get, just what I pick up in my travels. The mind games and dyslexia come into play when letters aren’t quite in the right order so that when you try and read the word phonetically, Cu Ah Tu = CAT it doesn’t work but look and say without being too literal and you have an interesting word or sound.

Big Cat

I can't remember the exact combination, something along the lines of M140AWL, the big cat Jaguar said meowl.

K 1 TEN

A Porsche Carrera that ought to be a Big Cat's baby.

MR 51 OKE

up market Mercedes saloon equiped as a taxi and driven by an oriental lady who may well have been Mrs. Ioke

OO 52 SOO

nice pattern plate on a bright yellow Porsche 0052500

WE 51 WOO

just imagine the driver of this silver Seat being nick named Wezzie Woo

C 11 WLY

pushing his luck by using curved brackets () for figure ones Mr. Cowly has a personal registration

PCL 15 T

Paul Clist, Managing Director of Flax Bourton near Bristol Skoda Main dealer Clist & Rattle has his name on his company Skoda! P.Clist

FAR 11 T

onomatopoeic number for an air cooled VW camper van.

15 ELL

Seen a few years ago on Porche flying south on the A5 near Bedford - I sell

C 4 NOE

a Ford Escort complete with racks to take the boats

WA 51 HNG

Be a little dyslexic with the order of the letters and you'll get your washing done.

BU 51 BAZ

At those prices London Taxi driver Busy Baz must be making a fortune!

M 12 WSM

For sale in a local motorcycle shop - Mr Weston-super-Mare, one for former Lord Archer?

L 100 NNG

A long stretched number for a long stretched limo.

S 15 EXY

A positively Spanish flavour for this stretch limo Si Sexy

M 5 EXY

Another to slip past the censors to make a convertible Mercedes Mm sexy

C 1 USH

With a black bolt head next to figure 1, this big 4x4 has a crush on you

DE 51 ESL

This BMW tries hard to remind us that it does not use petrol

A 4 AWK

Grey Ford Focus or African Grey Parrot? Sqaaawk

LE 51 MAZ

A black Ford Ka wants to tell us about about Maralyn or Mary?

N 10 KTT

Carefull with the screw head and Nick has personalised his Audi TT

L 19 LYS

Depending on your opinion of Audi cars rounded script makes either man or machine ugly

© Martin G. Layton 2004

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