• Welcome to this forum . We are a worldwide group with a common interest in Birmingham and its history. While here, please follow a few simple rules. We ask that you respect other members, thank those who have helped you and please keep your contributions on-topic with the thread.

    We do hope you enjoy your visit. BHF Admin Team

Vehicle Registration Letters - Issuing Authority Listing

  • Thread starter Thread starter BernardR
  • Start date Start date
Thanks Bernie, have had great fun looking where some of our old cars were originally registered - interestingly, my current car is a UPU suffix, which indicates a Newcastle registration, yet it had one owner fron new according to the records and all its history is from Surrey! Dads old cars do fit their letters.
My son is currently asking all of mom and dads friends if they remember their old numbers so he can see whrer their cars were registered, who said kids need expensive toys, though it means I lose my laptop lol
Sue
 
It is indeed very useful Bernie, Thank You.... wish I'd have known about it a while back...it would have made life so much easier when I was trying to find out about my Grandads bike from 1929, ...fortunately an old friend was able to tell me where the bike was registered (Walsall) and the record centre there still had the records on file so I was able to find out everything about the bike :)
 
Hello Sistersue,

if your car has a relativley new registration something like.....BG 55 XXX then using the last two letters no longer apply. This is because the DVLC were running out of numbers as they can only use derivatives of 1-10 as the "random element"

New type issues use 25 letters of the alphabet (no i) as the random element as it gives a much larger base from which to work.........so assuming you have a post 2000 reg then you need to take the first two letters in order to locate the area your car was first registered for example it now seems all card registered with in the larger Birmingham area start with B and the second letter can be from A-Z, then the two digits for the time of registration followed finally by three letters ie, the "random" part.

Hope that makes sense!!
 
I am not sure this happened in any other area's of the country, but Birmingham had a VP series of numbers. For example AVP 765G. These were used on some commercial vehicles but not on private cars. They were used on some "estate cars" though.
 
Dirty Habit said:
I am not sure this happened in any other area's of the country, but Birmingham had a VP series of numbers. For example AVP 765G. These were used on some commercial vehicles but not on private cars. They were used on some "estate cars" though.
Click to expand...

Yes, this also applied to ?OA, ?OG, ?OM and I think ?OX. Commercial vehicles - vans, trucks, estates
 
In my "youth" I collected bus and car registration numbers (don't know why now) and all Birmingham registration numbers had an O in the middle JOJ 123, GOB 123 etc: I had a Ford Zodiac KOX 420 and a Mini AOH 886B. I was once helped out when I ran out of petrol in '63/'64?, by a chap in an Austin A40 reg no XON 440. I can remember the reg but not the chaps name, funny what you can remember.
jimbo
 
Many of the O registration letters were used by Birmingham, Stockland Coaches used OC, OL and ON for most of their coaches, the most memorable exception being OD which was Devon.
 
Flights Coaches almost always had a "7" in the registration number. And if my memory is correct, including the trade plates used by Flights Garage. I worked for Flights Garage at Victoria Road, Aston and remember the comments regarding Ken Flights superstitions, such as, not having or using any vehicle were the numbers added up to "13" and him not working on Friday the 13th.
 
Dirty Habit said:
Flights Coaches almost always had a "7" in the registration number. And if my memory is correct, including the trade plates used by Flights Garage. I worked for Flights Garage at Victoria Road, Aston and remember the comments regarding Ken Flights superstitions, such as, not having or using any vehicle were the numbers added up to "13" and him not working on Friday the 13th.
Click to expand...
Stocklands used to use a run of reg numbers (VOL 1, 2, 3 and 4, 22, 23, 24 JOC etc) back in the days when I worked for them. We had a few ex Flights drivers the most memorable being the one with the nickname of Mageeve who used to frighten the passengers when he walked up to the motor using a white stick, not sure how that would go down nowadays :)
 
JOJ 1-999 were all on Birmingham City Transport buses of various types. I think this must be the only time when a full sequence was allocated like this.

Thankfully a good selection of them are now preserved for us to enjoy.

Simon
 
I think Edinburgh corporation transport had a full sequence.

Remember my dad telling me he bought a Ford thames 7cwt van new in March 1959(no purchase tax!) registration number 26 VP. Pity he never kept it. plate worth Ten times more than the van cost new!
 
Afaik O1 was first number issued in Brum and followed numerically O2, O3 etc......so lettts get reaaady to ruuummmmbllle!!!!:triumphant:
O1 today
O1_1318948816.jpg

O2 =Ferrari 575 Maranello
[TABLE="class: vehicle-description, width: 1"]
[TR="bgcolor: transparent"]
[TD="bgcolor: transparent"]Registration[/TD]
[TD="bgcolor: transparent"]O3[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="bgcolor: transparent"]
[TD="bgcolor: transparent"]Make[/TD]
[TD="bgcolor: transparent"]VOLVO[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="bgcolor: transparent"]
[TD="bgcolor: transparent"]Model[/TD]
[TD="bgcolor: transparent"]V70[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="bgcolor: transparent"]
[TD="bgcolor: transparent"]De[TABLE="class: vehicle-description, width: 1"]
[TR="bgcolor: transparent"]
[TD="bgcolor: transparent"][/TD]
[TD="bgcolor: transparent"][/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
[/TD]
[TD="bgcolor: transparent"]SE LUX D5 AUTO



[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

images



O5_1288820130.jpg

IMG-20110720-00168.jpg
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top