Q platers

[sierraman]

Do they still issue Q plates on cars, you don’t see them anymore like when they were quite a regular sight usually on something like a Sierra Cosworth. Any pictures or memories of stuff having Q plates?

[bramz7]

Funnily enough this very evening I was passed by a USA import Ford Fusion with a Q plate. There is (or was) a Q plate LTI taxi in Reading too, bet the origin of that was completely legit.

[Asimo]

Lots of contractor's kit on Q plates. Dumpers, rollers and the like. Why? No idea.

[vulgalour]

This is on a very hard earned Q plate under the new rules.

 

 

http://forum.retro-rides.org/thread/36896/1953-anglia-retro-rides-needed

[sierraman]

Lots of contractor's kit on Q plates. Dumpers, rollers and the like. Why? No idea.

It’s easily nicked and difficult to prove identity of plant when it’s recovered and all the numbers have been ground off.

[doug]

Got one. It was with the army for 10 years and date of manufacture  got lost therefore Q plate. Cant upload pics due to red wine  but google Q501JKN.

 

UPDATE:-

 

[dome]

Mines still going well, just don't have the time/weather to drive it enough!

 

[chaseracer]

Sounds good, though!

[GrumpiusMaximus]

Saw a Mitsubishi Shogun-like thing today on the M1 with a Q plate.  Can't work out why.  Was probably a mid-90s model and I can't believe for a second it was a kit.

 

Otherwise, no Q plates in quite some time.

[Jim Bergerac]

Saw this in Birmingham a while back and thought it was odd, it's a 2013 according to a plate check:

[sierraman]

A few FX4s were designated Q in the late 80’s because despite being a new car they were fitted with a recon Nissan engine or something to that effect.

[BavarianRetro]

Q plates were issued where the year of manufacture (using the old points system) could not be established.

[Doctormop]

I was always led to believe that a Q registration meant Questionable provenance as to a vehicles identity

Seems too straightforward somehow but Who knows???

[Ghosty]

I passed a Q plate electric milkfloat in Manchester city centre today

[Isaac Hunt]

I was in the parts trade when they bought out the 'Quandry Plate' concept.

 

No fekker had realised that us numberplate makers didn't have any Q letters in the stock of letters. Had to use an O and a bit of a chopped up 1. Depending upon one's artistic ability you either pulled it off or it looked proper shite.

 

I remember one lad making a plate ( we called him Dewhurst as a nickname ) and he didn't quite get the concept of using some of a number 1 and used most of it, looked proper knaff it did, we all had a dose of the PMSL.

[Dan_ZTT]

I'm just into my 30s and I don't think I've ever seen a Q-plate on the road. I'm reasonably sure I would have noticed.

[Tickman]

The building firm my dad used to work for had lots of Transits and they were kept on the road as cheaply as possible.

One day the mechanic came out to site and took the number plates off one of the vans and put a Q plate on it. Then he left site and said nothing about it.

 

It turns out they had changed so much of it to keep it on the road it no longer was itself

[New POD]

There was a black 3 door sierra cosworth in Settle with a Q plate. Took my wing mirror off going past me a Mach 3 in the hills. Never stopped. twat.

[Spottedlaurel]

Breakdown/recovery trucks which used to be able to operate under the garage's trade plates got clobbered with them at some point in the 1980s:

 

1986 Peugeot 309 1.6GR + Ford Transcontinental (John Grose) by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr

 

Q-plates were also common round my way with the various oddities USAF personnel brought with them, particularly the JDM stuff after they'd been stationed at Okinawa:

 

1984-86 Nissan Sunny 1.5 JDM (B11) c.1995/96 by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr

 

There was a series of these Q...LEW cars in the Mildenhall/Lakenheath area.

[mercrocker]

I had one....

 

A mate of mine used to dabble in EU imports in the mid Eighties.   Once "A" prefix plates had arrived in 1983 the DVLA no longer issued the current registration series to imported cars.   Previously, a two or three year old car could gain say an X or Y reg. which made it a lot easier to sell - even if the correct age was declared buyers were happy to be seen in something assumed to be nearly new. 

 

Looking for a motor one day I chanced upon his latest acquisition - an accident-damaged 316 in LHD flavour.   These were not difficult to convert to RHD, a bit of jack-action on the boot had it fit again and I looked forward to driving my "new" BMW.   The new rules "Q" plate was a bit of a bastard, though, and proved to be a sticking point when I came to sell it a year or so on.  

 

At the time, DVLA  (it was still all regional office stuff back then of course) didn't seem too interested in any other registration evidence and were far less happy issuing age-related plates so there was an awful lot of Q plate stuff about.  Seems mainly to be genuinely indeterminate-age stuff now, like plant or odd stuff such as hospital laundry floats that have suddenly needed road-legal registration.   It seemed to be a good couple of years before proper age-related registrations began to be issued from the "dead pool" for imported stuff.   Many of these early Q plates were replaced with age-related on application and they soon disappeared.

 

Q257FRU it was, for the record - it would have looked much better with an age-related "S" suffix which of course it should have had (it wasn't recorded as damaged in Germany).

[Dave_Q]

Yes they still issue Q plates for the same situations as ever, age or identity unknown.

 

So you are likely to get one for:

Stolen/recovered with no VIN

Rebuilds/kit cars where either not all parts are brand new or not enough points to keep donor car plate

Imports with no age evidence

Off road stuff with no VIN/dating proof eg pit bikes/crossers/plant etc.

[timolloyd]

Mercrocker’s post brings back memories. As a nipper in the 80s there seemed to be loads of Qs about and I was led to believe they were imports or salvaged/kit cars

[Mally]

In the beginning with Kit Cars you could angle things the way you prefered.

Most parts from the same vehicle, keep original reg.

All new parts, new registration.

Bits and pieces from everywhere, Q reg.

Mine were all Q.

Previous to Q you could build a kit car from all sorts of crap and register it as brand new.

I built a Dutton Sierra for £1150, the Kit alone was £950 IIRC. Brand new X reg sir!

Ran it 2 years and sold it for £2,000.

[sierraman]

There used to be quite a few yank stuff imported onto non age related plates, 77 S plated Cord 812 springs to mind in reflective plates as well for added shite.

[holbeck]

A few FX4s were designated Q in the late 80’s because despite being a new car they were fitted with a recon Nissan engine or something to that effect.

 

ISTR that was because the FX4 switched over from the BMC 2.5 to the land rover diesel engine in about 1983 and it was a total disaster, The LR engine was completely unsuited to the Taxi duty Cycle. 

 

As a short term fix Carbodies imported BMC 2.5's from India and fitted them to supposedly rebuilt existing vehicles. This was necessary as they didn't comply with then current legislation.  The cab's lost their previous* identity in this process and came back to the road on Q plates.

 

The long term fix was the Nissan lump they then used for years.

[quicksilver]

ISTR that was because the FX4 switched over from the BMC 2.5 to the land rover diesel engine in about 1983 and it was a total disaster, The LR engine was completely unsuited to the Taxi duty Cycle. 

 

As a short term fix Carbodies imported BMC 2.5's from India and fitted them to supposedly rebuilt existing vehicles. This was necessary as they didn't comply with then current legislation.  The cab's lost their previous* identity in this process and came back to the road on Q plates.

 

The long term fix was the Nissan lump they then used for years.

I was just about to post the same thing. They were known as FX4Q because of the Q plates but I'd like to think the 4Q was a rude gesture to Land Rover.

 

Most Q plates I see these days are on mobility scooters from when the law changed and they had to be registered but no one had any idea how old they were. It still seems odd seeing them with numberplates.

 

There's a Q reg group on Flickr with plenty of interesting stuff in it.

[Brodders]

Q-plates were also common round my way with the various oddities USAF personnel brought with them, particularly the JDM stuff after they'd been stationed at Okinawa:

 

1984-86 Nissan Sunny 1.5 JDM (B11) c.1995/96 by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr

 

There was a series of these Q...LEW cars in the Mildenhall/Lakenheath area.

There are a few still USAF related cars around here which have been issued with Q plates recently, but most now seem to end up with plates relevant to the vehicle's age. The last one I saw was about 6 months ago in Bury St Edmunds, on a US spec Passat of all things.

[sierraman]

Insurance used to be a bit of a problem IIRC.

[Guest Hooli]

I had a Q plate oloP once. It was an A reg rebuilt into a shell from a scrappie & they said I couldn't have the reg as it was marked as scrapped. Odd that as I applied for it anyway due to how long the Q plate V5 took to arrive. I ended up with two V5s for the same car, different regs but the same shell & engine numbers etc...

[Kiltox]

I had a Q plate oloP once. It was an A reg rebuilt into a shell from a scrappie & they said I couldn't have the reg as it was marked as scrapped. Odd that as I applied for it anyway due to how long the Q plate V5 took to arrive. I ended up with two V5s for the same car, different regs but the same shell & engine numbers etc...

Good old DVLA

 

This is the “DVLA of old” that we don’t seem to see as much of any more at its finest.