Black and silver plates

[michael1703]

 

There was a special notice the other week that black and silver plates can be used on anything manufactured before 1st January 1977

 

Although they look gash on some cars of that era and divide opinion they look alright on a black Radford mini etc

 

l classes)

Section 6.3 has been updated to cover:

 

radically altered vehicles issued with a DVLA vehicle identification number (VIN)

black and silver registration plates are now allowed on vehicles manufactured before 1 January 1977

 

 

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/mot-special-notice-02-17-inspection-manual-changes-and-dual-purpose-vehicles/mot-special-notice-02-17-inspection-manual-changes-and-dual-purpose-vehicles

[dollywobbler]

Yes. It's stupidly linked to free tax now. Idiots.

[mercrocker]

So we can look forward to more N reg. Mk3 Cortinas and Triumph Stags sporting woefully incorrect plates and fonts.   

[AMC Rebel]

Around here anyone who feels like it uses whatever plate they like (with or without rearranging the characters) - there appears to be zero enforcement.

[Tamworthbay]

Not sure why this bothers so many people, doesn't really hurt anyone does it?

[dollywobbler]

Not sure why this bothers so many people, doesn't really hurt anyone does it?

 

Yes. It causes me physical pain and much anguish.

[Tamworthbay]

Yes. It causes me physical pain and much anguish.

Well stop eating the feckers then.

[chaseracer]

It offends my automotive CDO 

[mk2_craig]

I don't understand the mindset. "Look at me! My car is OLD!!"

 

I was under the impression black plates gave ANPR cameras grief but maybe that's been resolved now?

[danthecapriman]

Although it's now legal on cars that are also tax exempt, it still does look a bit odd on cars too new to of had them fitted back in the day.

For me 73 with black plates - fine

Post 73 - looks wrong, but whatever. Your car and all that...

 

I've got black & silver plates on my 73 Mercury. Being an old yank of that sort of age I think it looks better than reflectives personally.

My 74 Capri however would look weird wearing them so it'll be keeping its aluminium reflectives with riveted black digits plates.

[chaseracer]

Black plates were very rarely seen after approx 69/70 anyway.  I am old enough to remember this... 

[chaseracer]

Bizarrely, in the 1970s, reflectives were a favourite way of making an old knacker look MODERNE.  By mounting the new plate above the bumper, quite often.

[danthecapriman]

Bizarrely, in the 1970s, reflectives were a favourite way of making an old knacker look MODERNE.  By mounting the new plate above the bumper, quite often.

Although rarely seen nowadays, I love to see something from the 60's or older that would of had black plates, running around with replacement early reflectives.

There used to be an old Vauxhall F type down here until very recently driven by an old guy, this had very old aluminium reflective plates on it. They'd almost turned to a weathered filthy yellow and white though where they were so old!

[Magnificent Rustbucket]

To me, anything up to and including 'E' looks right with a black 'plate, 'F', 'G' and 'H' look right with either, 'J' is a bit borderline, 'K' is really pushing it and 'L' and beyond just looks jarringly anachronistic.

 

I suspect a lot of this irritation is down to remembering the cars before they were classics. People in their twenties may find inappropriately fitted black 'plates coolly different/stand-out old, rather than just wrong.

[chaseracer]

We are the AS Giffers - we know what we like, and we like what we know!

 

[JeeExEll]

^^

It's a bit mad really when you think about it, it's just the colour of a bit of plastic or metal on a car. Diluted OCD?

[mk2_craig]

Don't agree. If you are going to the bother of restoring a car correctly, getting all the right trim, badges, stripes and that, why then not get that one last period detail correct? I know they're easily changed again like.

[Guest Hooli]

Oh good, now the B/W plate on my '76 Bonnie is legal (well apart from being 6x4.5" that is).

 

I think it looks right as these bikes looked old even when new.

[eddyramrod]

To me, anything up to and including 'E' looks right with a black 'plate, 'F', 'G' and 'H' look right with either, 'J' is a bit borderline, 'K' is really pushing it and 'L' and beyond just looks jarringly anachronistic.

 

I suspect a lot of this irritation is down to remembering the cars before they were classics. People in their twenties may find inappropriately fitted black 'plates coolly different/stand-out old, rather than just wrong.

Well said sir; my understanding of the divide in a nutshell.  There's no way black plates should appear on a car with, let's say, N or P suffix.   Nonononononononono!

[mercrocker]

I suppose it does come down to personal memories but before we all go completely senile it is worth trying to educate people (not in a cloth cap waggy finger way just through encouragement) who are after all trying to make their cars look right.   You can't legislate for gits who just think its cool but they will fall by the wayside anyway..... 

 

Just before the compulsion to fit reflectives came in there seemed to be a flurry of later cars bought new with black and white plates.   When you bought a car back then you got F.All that wasn't on there when it left the factory.  Number plates were extra cost.   Reflective number plates were extra, extra cost.   Forthcoming legislation to MAKE you fit yellow and white plates was reflected (sorry) in car dealers hiking up the price for them.   Car buyers, just as dealers, were what they are today and often refused to stump up any more than was absolutely necessary for their showroom-fresh shite. 

 

My Aunt was one and insisted on paying no extra for reflectives on her K reg. Autobianchi Giardinera and it was delivered with black and whites.   On the other hand, secondhand dealers often found it worth replacing plates for nice new reflective ones (this was before dealer plate logos were common) on their nearly-new stock.   Another Aunt of mine bought her '67 Mini in 1970 with the new plates already fitted. 

 

There also remained a conservative type of buyer who could well afford reflective plates but didn't like them, prestige cars often wore those engraved Perspex black plates with silver multi-lined digits and these look very nice on cars of a period where generally most run of the mill stuff had the yellow and whites. 

 

Just as now, there were buyers who wanted their Mk 3 Cortina XL looking nice and modern for their £1395 and those who muttered and chundered about the extra £1.75 and had their Austin 1300 on black and whites. 

 

None of these examples for many years of course would have Charles Wright anywhere near them and that error is perhaps one of the most jarring to me on some of the old stuff I see now.

 

Its not OCD so much as an awareness of what is correct and what is not.    

 

Alright, its probably a little bit OCD but I can't help it.....

[timolloyd]

As one who is too young to remember when there was a choice, that explanation is really interesting.

Yellow/white or not, sometimes I think the wrong style of font/raised/printed is worse than the colour. i.e. printed coloured plates on an early 70s car, which would have had raised lettering on yellow and white, I think?

[mercrocker]

Most of the first reflectives seem to have been separate plastic digits individually affixed to the plate, pressed aluminium came a bit later and the Serck type with "modernised" rounded font later still.   Plastic laminate film became more the norm in the early 1980s IIRC.    

[Austin-Rover]

Black/white plates on cars later than 1970 have always irked me - but that's just me. There's something just so right about run of the mill cars from the mid1960s onwards on white/yellow plates, I think simply because period photographs actually show they were really popular.

 

Perhaps the most unforgivable sin, which I notice more and more at shows is black/white plates...with the post 2001 font! Arrrgh!

[scruff]

I know what you mean, the new font cheapo plates just look wrong, there's even people putting them on traction engines FFS. 

 

This is my mate Rob's Landy, I think it's a 1955. It was done up in the 70s and the old boy kept it in the same nick until he gave up driving a few years ago. I think the plates just finish it off.

 

 

Going back to the changeover back in the 60s/70s; was there an exemption for agricultural stuff? I quite often see tractors, combines etc through work which are on obviously original black & silvers on P, R, S, T plates. 

 

 

 

[eddyramrod]

My dad bought his last new car in 1967, a Cortina 1500 Super (the 1600 engine had just come out so I reckon he got a discount).  It came with black plates (HWM 457F).  I well remember that during the ensuing year he had reflectives fitted, the raised-letter type.  He was by no means alone, many people did the same.  Later he bought an older Cortina, VGR 990, which had been retro-fitted with reflectives.  As, again, so many cars were.

[Guest Hooli]

I know what you mean, the new font cheapo plates just look wrong, there's even people putting them on traction engines FFS. 

 

This is my mate Rob's Landy, I think it's a 1955. It was done up in the 70s and the old boy kept it in the same nick until he gave up driving a few years ago. I think the plates just finish it off.

 

10608373_10154886737540078_1219518408231304094_o (1).jpg

 

Going back to the changeover back in the 60s/70s; was there an exemption for agricultural stuff? I quite often see tractors, combines etc through work which are on obviously original black & silvers on P, R, S, T plates. 

 

Was that taken at Holmfirth beacon?

[Ghosty]

radically altered vehicles issued with a DVLA vehicle identification number (VIN)

 

So, Q platers that've been through IVA? That opens potential for things to look really, REALLY wrong.

[mrcitroen]

London Transport used black & white plates into the '80's. something that always intreagued me. Anyone know why?

[captain_70s]

I like me raised digits. Either the old white on black ones (Bluemel's?) or the 1970s black on white/black on yellow examples, pressed black and silver plates look a bit naff in comparison. Of course nothing is worse than black and silver perspex plates with the modern font or just regular old post 2001 plates on an old motor. Anybody who ditches proper old plates for that shit can get in the fucking sea.

 

I'm lucky that the Doloshites both have their original plates, they seem to have squarer edges than the repo ones.

[Magnificent Rustbucket]

Most of the first reflectives seem to have been separate plastic digits individually affixed to the plate, pressed aluminium came a bit later and the Serck type with "modernised" rounded font later still.   Plastic laminate film became more the norm in the early 1980s IIRC.    

 

 

The plastic laminate plates were introduced in the mid 1970s and since they were very expensive at first, they were generally fitted to big cars. Most Jags, Mercs and above would have had them fitted from the start, but by the late 1970s they were very widely fitted. IIRC, by the 1980s new cars with the plates with stick on letters were very much in the minority.