HMC BMW coupe meltdowns

[HMC]

On 21/06/2025 at 19:06, LightBulbFun said:

@HMC I presume you have the V5 for it in your name, in hand by now right? are there any special notes on the front of it? 

Yes, notes dont give away much though…

[LightBulbFun]

1 hour ago, HMC said:

Yes, notes dont give away much though…

fascinating! thats not actually a special note I have ever seen before now  but googling it and having a look at things, it looks like cars from the Channel Island (and possibly sometimes NI?) gain it

heres a modern 2012 car with that that same special note

https://www.pickeringcars.co.uk/admin/uploaded_photos/1435480_doc_14354801.pdf

 

I wonder how long that special note has been around for and what its original form was?

 

see special notes work on a coded system much like the rest of the V5 does (which is why they never have typo's in them)

 

so for example "was registered and/or used" which always felt incomplete to me

sure enough it used to be "previously registered and/or used prior to date of first registration shown" you can see how they truncated it

 

another example of this is sometimes you see on V5's "Declared new at first registration" but that actually used to be "declared new at first registration in great Britain by manufacturer/sole import concessionaire"

 

so DVLA abusing the coded system goes a long way! LOL and thus I wonder if "was registered and/or used elsewhere in the UK" was always like that or did it have more to it that was truncated over time?

[lesapandre]

Has it always been white? The Internet Movie Cars Database shows a gold VDP on the island of Jersey in an episode of Bergerac:

https://www.imcdb.org/movie.php?id=81831

There can't have been very many VDP cars on Jersey.

Alternatively the Channel Islands Government equivalent of the DVLA may be checkable?

[LightBulbFun]

as an side I also wonder if diplomatic or military or something special along those lines, cars would get such a special note? since they would be "registered and/or used elsewhere in the UK", but not initially registered with the DVLA in the normal way

 

or maybe someone just drove around with it on trade plates for it all if its life?  (tho that would not give it a "date of first registration august 1975" that it has)

[EyesWeldedShut]

BOAR or similar? Registered on the red bordered plates then exported - would they have kept the original number on re-import?

[SiC]

59 minutes ago, lesapandre said:

There can't have been very many VDP cars on Jersey.

Alternatively the Channel Islands Government equivalent of the DVLA may be checkable?

@mk2_craig

[mk2_craig]

11 hours ago, lesapandre said:

Has it always been white? The Internet Movie Cars Database shows a gold VDP on the island of Jersey in an episode of Bergerac:

https://www.imcdb.org/movie.php?id=81831

There can't have been very many VDP cars on Jersey.

Alternatively the Channel Islands Government equivalent of the DVLA may be checkable?

Probably a similar proportion of VDP to other cars as on mainland. 100,000 or so populations here, so unlikely to have been Mega rare, relatively speaking. 

Online info is sparse but there is a csv of all vehs registered at opendata.gov.je  (view the contents with the same suspicion as you would DVLA/Howmanyleft info) the oldest file lists 36 Vanden Plas in June 2021 and 32 in Mar 2025.  But, before the mid nineties, not taxing your car during one year would automatically deregister it the next, so just because it’s not on the current computer register doesn’t mean it isn’t sitting in a shed or field somewhere. 

I don’t think you’re going to get to the bottom of its original identity without making direct enquiries i.e. find out what documentation was used to UK-register it for the first time. It could have been brought over way back in the early 90s and just never put on the road for decades (Guernsey and Isle of Man are other potential origins)

Incidentally, varying definitions of “UK” are available but they don’t usually include the Channel Islands! 

 

Perhaps your Plah was a northern Irish car that eventually had the original and dateless NI reg transferred off causing a mainland UK mark to be issued for the first time? Not sure what the MOT requirement would have been for that. 

[lesapandre]

I suppose the 36 VDP cars could include the earlier Princess models - big and small - together with (incorrectly but possibly) the VDP badged Daimler versions including the limos - I think Jaguar even had a VDP option at one time -  some of the Austin-Rover stable too. All very complicated for whoever was entering the records on to any database.

Fascinating stuff.

Digging into an individual car history often turns up fascinating details.

[flat4alfa]

[edit: Not sure why this has gone down a speculation rabbit hole about NI and IoM. My apparently cynical outlook previously has been wound-back!]

My Vauxhall Victor 101 Estate lived at the same address in a rural part of Conwy since new. 

When it was pulled out of that lean-to, the request for logbook and ownership transfer was applied for.  But DVLA had no record.  They disbelieved the submitted VIN number and sent local Police round to check that the car really existed.

There was no logbook found at the house or with the family, so DVLA held back the application.  Apparently, if an old tax disc was in the window, they would have taken that into account.

Eventually, after a written response from Vauxhall Heritage which determined the VIN genuine and would be from March 1965, DVLA issued a replacement registration with the V5C stating:

2005 Vauxhall Victor 101.  Declared Manufactured 1965.

The V5C issue had a covering letter stating the original 1965/C metal plates fitted to the car should be destroyed. 

[HMC]

Do not adjust your set: fluid leak from the offside. Under investigation.

Meanwhile a VDP auto i owned in 2020 I spotted on facebook- still about plus alloys and different number plates. I wonder if it has spacers fitted as the track looks wider

[Datsuncog]

23 hours ago, HMC said:

Yes, notes dont give away much though…

 

21 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

fascinating! thats not actually a special note I have ever seen before now  but googling it and having a look at things, it looks like cars from the Channel Island (and possibly sometimes NI?) gain it

 

9 hours ago, mk2_craig said:

Perhaps your Plah was a northern Irish car that eventually had the original and dateless NI reg transferred off causing a mainland UK mark to be issued for the first time? Not sure what the MOT requirement would have been for that. 

Hmmm...

White VDP... terrible paintwork because it was pebble-dashed with bird guano... On a GB plate, but for some reason stashed away in a barn in Co. Leitrim... I'm starting to wonder if MrsDC's uncle is somehow involved in the story here.

Above pic was taken by myself in 2009, I was told the car was last on the road c.2002. Possibly brought over to NI first, and then made it across the border to ROI but was never officially registered down there. Plate was maybe registered with DVLNI, but fell off the live system once tax lapsed, and so wasn't transferred back across to DVLA in Swansea when the two merged about ten years back.

I think I may have more pics of the VDP, though none terribly good as it was all a bit crowded in the barn between several Trabants and Reliants.

I shall have a look through the DC archives and report back in due course...

[N Dentressangle]

That's quite a barn-find collection.

Feed line: What do you buy a man with two Trabants?

[Datsuncog]

1 hour ago, Datsuncog said:

I shall have a look through the DC archives and report back in due course...

Right then... photos!

All the way back to August 2009.

Front.

Back

Nose grot.

Shitty arse.

Mank.

Roof bleb.

Snout.

Bonus Trabbis and Plastic Pig - also on a GB plate, which checks out as tax expired May '86, still on the DVLA system with no export marker and last V5 issued in September '81.

Annoyingly, I can't see the number plates in any of my pics because the VDP is sandwiched between a Trabant and a Mini Van, but I did see a photo of it looking actually quite tidy around the turn of the Millennium - and it was wearing a GB plate, despite being in the Republic of Ireland. Can't remember what it was, though!

To be clear, I'm not alleging this is the same car - but it just so happens to be the only white Vanden Plas 1500 Series 1 with terrible paint that I know  of, and which appears to have experienced a generally... relaxed approach to licencing law during its Irish sojourn. 

Might try making some further enquiries at my end...

[Dick Cheeseburger]

22 minutes ago, Datsuncog said:

Right then... photos!

All the way back to August 2009.

Front.

Back

Nose grot.

Shitty arse.

Mank.

Roof bleb.

Snout.

Bonus Trabbis and Plastic Pig - also on a GB plate, which checks out as tax expired May '86, still on the DVLA system with no export marker and last V5 issued in September '81.

Annoyingly, I can't see the number plates in any of my pics because the VDP is sandwiched between a Trabant and a Mini Van, but I did see a photo of it looking actually quite tidy around the turn of the Millennium - and it was wearing a GB plate, despite being in the Republic of Ireland. Can't remember what it was, though!

To be clear, I'm not alleging this is the same car - but it just so happens to be the only white Vanden Plas 1500 Series 1 with terrible paint that I know  of, and which appears to have experienced a generally... relaxed approach to licencing law during its Irish sojourn. 

Might try making some further enquiries at my end...

That does look like it could potentially be the same car...

[mk2_craig]

3 hours ago, HMC said:

VDP auto i owned in 2020 I spotted on facebook- still about plus alloys and different number plates

Alloys from a high spec Ambastardor? Not an improvement (and neither are those awful plates) 

[Shite Ron]

3 hours ago, HMC said:

Do not adjust your set: fluid leak from the offside. Under investigation.

Meanwhile a VDP auto i owned in 2020 I spotted on facebook- still about plus alloys and different number plates. I wonder if it has spacers fitted as the track looks wider

It looked far better when you had it! At least it is still around though.
Is this the one that @anonymous user also owned a few years ago?

[flat4alfa]

The main difference is the factory-option fog lamps with their surrounds and the very rare survival of the chin spoiler piece

[HMC]

Recent suspension issue was due to me being too gentle with some of the fittings i was using- correctly tightened and we are back in business..

Speaking of “business” i remembered watching an episode of minder in 1994 (aged 14) that featured an unfortunate allegro- which im currently re watching 31 years later….

The story revolves around Arthur selling a ropey allegro to a Nun; his later misfortune he atteibutes to this deed to he then takes it back and sorts anything and everything thats amiss with it.

 

[High Jetter]

Early grille tho, peasant trim

[AnthonyG]

I do love the Minder episode title! 
Have to dig that out on ITV player. 

[Knotty Ash Towers]

I think I may have the answer to this car's origins. In September 2003 I was on holiday on the Isle Of Man and saw this VDP Allegro in Ramsey. It is the same colour and has the yellow lamps at the front. The Isle Of Man registration was TMN7, which you can't really make out on the photo due to sunlight and black number plates. The registration number doesn't show on the I.O.M vehicle registration search, as the car has now been exported from I.O.M.

[HMC]

8 hours ago, Knotty Ash Towers said:

I think I may have the answer to this car's origins. In September 2003 I was on holiday on the Isle Of Man and saw this VDP Allegro in Ramsey. It is the same colour and has the yellow lamps at the front. The Isle Of Man registration was TMN7, which you can't really make out on the photo due to sunlight and black number plates. The registration number doesn't show on the I.O.M vehicle registration search, as the car has now been exported from I.O.M.

That could be it! also the black painted wheels, brown roof (that looks painted and not vinyl) and the black below the front bumper, and has rear mud flaps.  Great detective work! 

edit-

if you look at the masking line for the roof, and especially the finishing line for the black behind and below the front bumper which is raised behind the bumper and drops to continue to the wheelarch-  is not standard as that would be body colour…

[HMC]

Theres also a badge of some sort above the bumper in the middle on the 2003 photo.

And theres a roughly cut hole (just slightly off centre) in the same sort of place on the bumper blade..

[Knotty Ash Towers]

@HMC, glad to be of service! The photo isn't the best, but I remember the car being in really good nick and was obviously cherished by its owner.

[HMC]

VDP #1 news

The suspension repairs (i patched in some sections of copper pipe to replace some rotten steel parts) are working well, but ive got a whole replacement front to back bit, in copper, from a (i think?) husband and wife team who support hydrolastic and hydragas suspended cars.

Ive also ordered a heritage certificate from the VIN which may shed some further light on its history, and might allow it to be re registered from a “P” onto an “N” plate as im sure its build is early 75 (although @LightBulbFun will know more than me if its possible or not)

[N Dentressangle]

AI produces this, which I'm not sure is an improvement 🤣

[artdjones]

Jersey is not part of the UK, it's a self governing dependency owned by the UK as the last vestige of England's French territories.

Formerly used in the UK sounds more like Northern Ireland.

[HMC]

21 minutes ago, N Dentressangle said:

AI produces this, which I'm not sure is an improvement 🤣

Quite cool if it could be done as with the bentley “koren coupe” style. 

[N Dentressangle]

I thought it looked a bit Series 1 Jaguar XJ. Which isn't a bad thing...

[barefoot]

On 28/06/2025 at 18:38, HMC said:

...from a (i think?) husband and wife team who support hydrolastic and hydragas suspended cars.

Curiously, I've  got them booked in to display a couple of VW at Camper Jam next weekend.