Black number plates

[tooSavvy]

1 hour ago, DSdriver said:

Yeh, thick black thin white thin black thick white etc.

Police were alerted to a BMW with 'false plates' and responded with a stop.

The driver was perplexed and unaware of any transgression....

Enquiries later showed yoofs defacing the QR with a black felt marker.

Be Warned

[LightBulbFun]

On 14/12/2020 at 17:14, Timewaster said:

I would get some raised letter reflectives but they cost more than the car and as it hasn't been on the road for a decade it's not really a priority. 

you can get a pair of Tippers raised plates for about £50 if its any help?  (he says assuming you paid more then £50 for the car when this IS autoshite!)

https://www.tippersvintageplates.co.uk/phdi/p1.nsf/supppages/tippers?opendocument&part=4

On 14/12/2020 at 15:47, jonathan_dyane said:

Whilst I think many cars had reflective plates from the late 60s (and many which didn’t were subsequently ‘updated’) it still surprises me how many early seventies cars didn’t have reflective plates. Notably the Citroen press fleet favoured non-reflective plates.

Ministry Model 70's had pressed white on black number plates right until they where outlawed on new vehicles starting the 1st of Janurary 1973

so everything before then including the first half of the L registration period where all on white on black plates!

as can be seen on this AC Model 70 thats from December 1972  

 

although amusingly all the Model 70's I know of that are (or are normally) in regular use, are all wearing the wrong type of plates for when they where new LOL

 

 

and as always when this topic comes up always fun to note that PSV vehicles had an exemption from the Jan 1973 rule and new vehicles I think could use white on black plates until 2001! although I sadly dont think any did that late

but London Transport certainly until early 80s at least!

where funnily enough they dont look wrong to me, show me a regular post 1972 car on silver on white plates and it will always look all sorts of wrong to me (and I think part of that is because when someone does put white on black plates on a Post 1972 car they always go for the cheapest/most naff looking types there are)

but i dont get that with London Transport buses, but I think its helped by the fact they are white on black plates in the literal sense  that they white transfers on just a simple bit of black painted metal

(as such Routemasters on silver and black and black on white plates/pressed plates bug the crap out of me LOL)

and probably since I grew up with that on aforementioned Routemasters and London Transport buses,  flat white on black plates are one of my favourite styles of historic number plates out there (and id be quite interested to see what a suitable Pre 1973 Model 70 with a pair so equipped would like like )

[Dick Longbridge]

Maybe it's just me, but a black and silver plate on a post 72 car offends me way less than a post 2001 style plate on a pre 2001 car. Digits should fill the plate right to the edges on anything pre 2001. 

Honestly, they look shit. 

Proper.

 

Gopper.

 

Inoffensive (yes, I know it's a French plate, but it's still silver on black)

[Timewaster]

18 minutes ago, Dick Longbridge said:

Maybe it's just me, but a black and silver plate on a post 72 car offends me way less than a post 2001 style plate on a pre 2001 car. Digits should fill the plate right to the edges on anything pre 2001. 

Honestly, they look shit. 

Proper.

 

Gopper.

 

Inoffensive (yes, I know it's a French plate, but it's still silver on black)

Just because one thing is shit, it doesn't mean that another thing is not also shit. 

😉

[Dick Longbridge]

2 minutes ago, Timewaster said:

Just because one thing is shit, it doesn't mean that another thing is not also shit. 

😉

It's levels of shit though. 

Photo 1= Level 0  on the shitometer

Photo 2= Level 957 on the shitometer

Photo 3= Level 5 on the shitometer.

[Out Run]

31 minutes ago, Dick Longbridge said:

Maybe it's just me, but a black and silver plate on a post 72 car offends me way less than a post 2001 style plate on a pre 2001 car. Digits should fill the plate right to the edges on anything pre 2001. 

Honestly, they look shit. 

Proper.

 

Gopper.

 

Inoffensive (yes, I know it's a French plate, but it's still silver on black)

Interesting example.

I still maintain that - although not for me - my RS1600i suited the black and silver plates that were on it when I bought it.

Also pictured, as sold.

 

Edited December 14, 2020 by Out Run

[bunglebus]

I have the "wrong" font on mine. Should bug me but I think it doesn't because it's a short reg anyway

 

[Shite Ron]

1 hour ago, Dick Longbridge said:

Maybe it's just me, but a black and silver plate on a post 72 car offends me way less than a post 2001 style plate on a pre 2001 car. Digits should fill the plate right to the edges on anything pre 2001. 

Honestly, they look shit. 

Proper.

 

Gopper.

 

Inoffensive (yes, I know it's a French plate, but it's still silver on black)

I do agree on this,  I have a few cars with modern font plates and they really annoy me, I need to decide on the correct plates to buy and get some for the Cortina S which came with terrible plates, fortunately it had the old rear plate in the boot which I fitted immediately. The front is still wrong. Most annoying was my silver2.3 Ghia estate, I bought it in 2002 and it had sloping dodgy show plates among other visual imperfections. I bought new plates immediately not realising the strange new legislation. It took me a while to work out why the car still looked wrong before it dawned on me and I had to buy another pair of plates. 
I like the French plates and black and silver can look ok in some circumstances, just not on my cars.

Interesting to see the busses, in the mid seventies I remember the new bin lorry had black plates, I remember thinking it was odd at the time. I remember it as an M reg so would only have been about 5 years old.

[UltraWomble]

I agree with @Dick Longbridge

Wasnt keen on these   ^^^^

Prefer these    vvvv thought the 6 isnt quite right

[HMC]

Our young man here isn’t constrained by convention. FOMOCO put him with a new  tangled plate in this ford ad and thinks it looks period bob on.

His other half looks less impressed.....

[Richard_FM]

I can remember seeing cars as late as an N reg which looked they had original non-reflective plates.

The 1973 Book of Motor Roadtests has pictures with a mixture of plates colours I've uploaded the non-reflective ones.

 

[Mr Laurence]

It’s strange what cars suit the non reflective plates and which ones don’t. To me, that white 911 looks just right with the black and white plates, whereas something else the exact same age, such as a Mk3 Cortina wouldn’t suit them anywhere near as well.

[Alusilber]

8 hours ago, willswitchengage said:

 Interestingly in lots of non-EU countries like Turkey, Georgia, Belarus etc they have the blue bit and country identifier but just with their national flag instead of the EU symbol. They look pretty smart and pander well to OCD types like me.

I expect that's what the new September 2021 format will look like, although I wouldn't be surprised if they change the blue to some other colour to remove the last vestige of EU symbolism.

[DSdriver]

Some cars look better with yellow plates than others

 

Which is why my DS now has this

 

But I have kept the original dealer plates for when the "old money" plate  goes on another car.

[DSdriver]

24 minutes ago, Alusilber said:

I expect that's what the new September 2021 format will look like, although I wouldn't be surprised if they change the blue to some other colour to remove the last vestige of EU symbolism.

Hmm a pale blue plate would look quite good on the DS, and why not, the Irish used to have red.

Lets get really radical and press for a range of colours to compliment the colour of the car. On second thoughts with most moderns either silver or black we would be back to square one.

[bunglebus]

26 minutes ago, DSdriver said:

Some cars look better with yellow plates than others

Oh my god that presses my buttons, especially on a freshly restored car. Spend ages getting it perfect and whack a set of £20 Halfords plates on it. Lovely.

[Mr Laurence]

17 minutes ago, bunglebus said:

Oh my god that presses my buttons, especially on a freshly restored car. Spend ages getting it perfect and whack a set of £20 Halfords plates on it. Lovely.

Yeah! After all the hard work that’s gone into it, that Saxo would look so much better with its original dealer plates...

[bobdisk]

Tiddles the Kitten originally had reflective plates, but when she was restored, the previous owner put silver-on-black pressed aluminium plates on. They look shit, so she is having pressed aluminium reflectives,  for a Chritmas pressie (or when I can afford them) 

[eddyramrod]

I well remember reflective plates becoming available in 1967.  My dad had the last car he bought new, HWM 457F, a mk 2 Cortina which had been delivered on black plates.  I think it was the following spring when he treated it to a set of the lovely new reflective type. 

Black continued to be used by utilities such as the Post Office and police until the end of 72, by which time they were looking distinctly old-fashioned on private cars, which had mostly gone over to the new style, certainly from the turn of the decade.  And then from the beginning of 73 the coloured plates were made mandatory.

For me, black on post-73 is just wrong, and sits uncomfortably on cars from about 68 onwards.

[martc]

17 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

and as always when this topic comes up always fun to note that PSV vehicles had an exemption from the Jan 1973 rule and new vehicles I think could use white on black plates until 2001! 

Where lorries exempt as well? The always beautifully turned out Ripponden Motors/Ripponden and District  wagons often had b and w plates, here's one from 1987-88 -

[Jikovron]

I feel the white on black plate thing was shaping up to be a handy historic class marker but other than that I've not lived the era to be car suitability aware lol 

My own 78 car has the modern style of plates from new which seem to be holding up very well unlike the dealer sticker which is now UV fried dust!

I shall leave those be I think primarily due to cost! 

[LightBulbFun]

37 minutes ago, martc said:

Where lorries exempt as well? The always beautifully turned out Ripponden Motors/Ripponden and District  wagons often had b and w plates, here's one from 1987-88 -

im not sure I do recall a post here mentioning that HGVs where also exempt, and given you now have photographic evidence I guess thats so  

I sadly iv never found either exemption in writing, but for the bus one theres plenty of evidence to support it!

perhaps @Inspector Morose or another well seasoned bus/heavy vehicle shitter could inform us what exactly the deal is

(I do know some people mentioned it may have been just down to the fact that in the 1973 rules they simply neglected to mention PSVs and HGVs, so while it might not said they could, it also never said they cant...)

 

but while I have some vague excuse, heres a couple clearer shots of Model 70's on white on black plates  (sadly its not known if the white on black plates was a Ministry specfication thing, or if because they where slightly cheaper then reflective plates and when you order 100 plates at a time the cost probably was a bit more significant, which is also probably why a lot of fleet vehicles in general stayed on white on black plates until the end)

[LightBulbFun]

also have to wonder if the same "exemption" applies to or still does to steam vehicles?

granted I think in this case it might be a case of no one really minds/cares and you would have to be a copper having a particularly bad day to pull a model steam engine because its plates where the wrong colour LOL

[martc]

12 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

but while I have some vague excuse, heres a couple clearer shots of Model 70's on white on black plates  (sadly its not known if the white on black plates was a Ministry specfication thing, or if because they where slightly cheaper then reflective plates and when you order 100 plates at a time the cost probably was a bit more sufficient, which is also probably why a lot of fleet vehicles stayed on white on black plates until the end)

My guess is the black plates would be cheaper because of surplus stock. As discussed above,  all the young dudes were specifying the new fangled trendy colourful (don't forget this is the '70s) reflective plates.  I suspect the plate manufacturers found themselves with a surplus of black plates, which would soon be obsolete, and would therefore turn them out cheaper than the new ones, particularly if you bought in bulk.

[St.Jude]

I like how having a black and white plate on a 1980's car annoys people far more than having 40 year old cars on the road without an MOT.

It's just a bloody colour. And, to be quite honest, white text on a black background is the most easy to read thing you can get. So, actually, black on yellow can do one and every sodding car on the road should be on black and white plates.

Fight me. 

[martc]

3 hours ago, sgtberbatov said:

I like how having a black and white plate on a 1980's car annoys people far more than having 40 year old cars on the road without an MOT.

It's just a bloody colour. And, to be quite honest, white text on a black background is the most easy to read thing you can get. So, actually, black on yellow can do one and every sodding car on the road should be on black and white plates.

Fight me. 

Fisticuffs - one reason (or is it the reason?) for reflective plates was the removal of the need for using 'parking' lights when parked at night (this was in 1971). The reflective number plate added an extra area of reflection to supplement the sometimes pathetic rear reflectors. And of course the front of a car doesn't have reflectors at all (except for the incidental light coming back from the headlight silvering). Yellow and white were chosen to help distinguish between the front and back of a car at night time.  Legibility must have been a consideration, but it wasn't the main reason for the change.

I remember my Aunt having to go out at night and clip on her parking lights on her Reliant Regal. It clipped over the window and plugged into a socket in the dashboard.

[jonathan_dyane]

4 hours ago, Jikovron said:

I feel the white on black plate thing was shaping up to be a handy historic class marker but other than that I've not lived the era to be car suitability aware lol 

My own 78 car has the modern style of plates from new which seem to be holding up very well unlike the dealer sticker which is now UV fried dust!

I shall leave those be I think primarily due to cost! 

Very, very nice.

I do wish it was still possible to buy plastic plates with proper square corners

[Dick Longbridge]

21 hours ago, Out Run said:

Interesting example.

I still maintain that - although not for me - my RS1600i suited the black and silver plates that were on it when I bought it.

Also pictured, as sold.

 

Did your old 3i used to live in Cornwall? 

[Mr Pastry]

39 minutes ago, martc said:

Legibility must have been a consideration, but it wasn't the main reason for the change

I suspect the main reason was that they were already working on ANPR back in the 1970s.....

[busmansholiday]

1 hour ago, martc said:

one reason (or is it the reason?) for reflective plates was the removal of the need for using 'parking' lights when parked at night (this was in 1971). 

It's still illegal to park a motor vehicle on any road where the speed limit is above 30mph without "parking lights". Hence why leaving your indicator on and removing the key often sticks a single sidelight on.

Not that I've seen plod do fook all about it for donkeys years.