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Homemade number plates on peoples cars


TripleRich

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I've probably told this story on here before, but my Amazon had a hand-made plate when I bought it:

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It was painted by the daughter of the car's first owner and cut from a piece of (incredibly heavy) scrap steel plate. 
It passed an MoT so equipped; despite this, I ended up in a blazing row with a copper on Brooklands Road in Sale who stopped me claiming it wasn't. 

I sent it back to her when the car went into for [a lot of] work. It turned out she had fond memories of the car and was surprised it was still on the road. 

 

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I was advised by a solicitor friend many years ago that the plate colouring could be related to the date of first issue of the plate so you could have a white on black on a modern car if your personal plate was first issued before the changeover to yellow/white backgrounds. I expect the law has been 'adjusted' since but I expect if you pointed out to a copper that both car and plate are older than him he would obviously let you proceed with caution.

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My own handiwork (?)

White car + sticky black characters.

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I don't know if it was legal in 1978 when I did it but it lasted for years,

first with me then with Dad and then Mum.

 

Off-cut of white Fablon, sticky characters and a later amendment with felt pen

when I eventually noticed the rear plate read 884 and not 844.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 1 year later...

I was advised by a solicitor friend many years ago that the plate colouring could be related to the date of first issue of the plate so you could have a white on black on a modern car if your personal plate was first issued before the changeover to yellow/white backgrounds. I expect the law has been 'adjusted' since but I expect if you pointed out to a copper that both car and plate are older than him he would obviously let you proceed with caution.

 

Current guidance is that your car has to be registered as "historic", and here's the form for it

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I see a lot of stuff (mostly barried up VAG) with the front number plate missing from its place, instead sat on the dashboard. Presumably to avoid speed cameras, wouldn't the police give them a producer to demand in 7 days the plate has been put back?

I seem to remember (and I believe I read the actual legislation at the time) that the law is slightly ambiguous in that it might mean right on the front, or it might mean somewhere nearer the front than the back. I always thought it would sound a bit 'freeman of the land' in court.

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Unbelievably half-arsed felt-tip on cardboard plate made up for a trailer we'd only bought that morning out of the Friday-Ad, because it had become abundantly clear that all my sodding diecasts, books and LPs were not going to fit into a Ford Escort, when moving from Brighton back to Northern Ireland.

 

If you look in the background, you can see me getting a bollocking from my (soon to be) ex-girlfriend, because even with the addition of the trailer I still couldn't fit all my sodding diecasts, books and LPs in, and we had to leave all our furniture and other household stuff behind.

 

Thanks to my former flatmate for taking that pic. I think.

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I haven't bought a plate for years; all my motors except one are legally on black and whites and the only source of properly fonted pressed ones charges about £946. 19s. 11d. each plus carriage. Anyway, I often go over the Dartford crossing (for work, not fun) and have to report that, unfortunately, they never fail clock and charge me.

Her Maj. is not required to have a plate at all so takes the M6 toll even after she's just brimmed the Phantom.

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Man she looks furious.

 

She was.

 

My flatmate then took another photo just after this, up close, which turned out to be as gruesome as you might imagine when someone sticks a camera in your face and says "Smile!", mid-argument.

 

You look moments from telling her to ‘just fuck off’

 

I think I just felt very sad, because I knew that she kinda had a point: it was a bit of dick move to tell her that we'd have to dump all our crockery and pans, just because I had five (count 'em) boxes of knackered charity shop Haynes manuals for Renault 14s and Fiat 128s and other cars that I would never, ever own. As well as several thousand vinyl records, including the complete recorded oeuvre of influential* and respected* artists such as Five Star and Transvision Vamp. Deep down, I think I knew that I was being a tool, even then.

 

I shouldn't have been surprised really that she dumped me; she'd put up with a lot of my asshattery.

 

Still! I did get a proper plate made up for the trailer once I got back to Bangor, taking full advantage of my Halfords trainer role while showing rookies how to use the plate roller - "okay, so maybe make up a square one now, just for variety... I'll give you a random totally made-up number, say, ooh, RBZ1510... yep, that's great, well done - erm, I'll just go and pop this in the bin now out the back."

 

It's still on the trailer, even though the Escrot's been bean-cans for a decade now.

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You should have made some greedy boards to increase the height of the trailer sides

Didys round here use 'up n over' garage doors for that *extra radiator on the way to the Weighbridge.

 

I see the same trannie groaning along, stacked to the rafters.. Must be a magnet for stoppage/cherry dips ??

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My favourite was a friend's caravan. He was a DT teacher and had used the vinyl plotter. It looked good apart from the fact that the yellow vinyl he had was too short so the final character was simply affixed next to it on the caravan. Nothing could sum him up better as someone who always did things for himself and to a high standard, but close enough was plenty.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Here's a good candidate for this thread. It's been re-imported from Ireland and only just registered in the UK so the owner hasn't had time to get proper plates made yet. I like this cardboard affair fixed over the Irish plate and it gets extra points for the use of green paint.

 

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1972 NSU Prinz 1200 TT by Adam Floyd, on Flickr

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