RUMCars Forum
General Category => Unusual Microcar Discussion => Topic started by: DanParkinson on June 15, 2016, 08:14:39 pm
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Hi Everyone,
My names Dan, im 19 and i've recently bought my first micro car - a Mini Comtesse. Im trying to get it registered for legal use on the road. One of your members has already been very helpful. Apparently someone on here has already been through the process of registering a mini comtesse, and it'd be great if they could offer me some guidance. One thing I do know I need to get is a proof of age certificate, and i've been told that there is also someone on here that could provide one - it'd be great if you could get in touch!
I'll have various other questions about the comtesse and the saxonette engine, but I thought registration would be a good place to start.
Regards,
Dan
(http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h44/DanParkinson/MiniComtesse/20160522_185946_zpslvscevkz.jpg)
(http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h44/DanParkinson/MiniComtesse/20160522_185929_zpshmmxktoy.jpg)
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Can't help on this one Dan but others will , just saying hi and welcome
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I can't help to but I love a mini comtesse, put up a few more pictures
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Rules have changed since I did any new registering. I also just sold mine, so no longer have access to its V5C to check info. Its ironic that the only two driving, registered, road legal cars that were about, have both now been exported, as no one here saw fit to pay a premium that the foreign buyers recognised. Hey ho.
But if you have a chassis plate on your Comtesse it should state that the car is homologated in 1975. That means its accepted by the French as a car. That means the EU accept it as a car. Indeed this date ends up being the default date on the few that have been registered, just because its on the chassis plate. My one might have been later, we think. A study is under way to try and track the build, changes and dates of these cars through production, but unless owners chip in with all their information, it will not be a big enough sample to be acceptable as a dating resource. So its up to all the Comtesse owners to act in their own interests. This initative was successfully done for the Invalid Carriages, which can mostly now gain a registration. So it works.
If you have no chassis plate. Oh dear! As sans permis, these cars do not normally come with any usable French documentation. Be very hard to register.
Since the chassis plate states the information needed to be known by the clipboards, I see no reason why they need a letter. They only need to have the car inspected. That might be acceptable by picture and MOT on the chassis number. The MOT inspector acting as the inspector on the clipboards behalf. Otherwise you would be directed to go to them, so they can look at it, which might be a pain in the arse, depending on where you live.
Part of the problem seems to be that these cars do not neatly fit into British banding of car structures and types. They should be classed as moped, as mine was. It is, in effect, the same as an Ariel Three or a Honda Stream. But there seems to be signs of deflection to Quad status. I suspect this is the easy answer with lack of proof about weight etc.
I do not know who, if anyone, is dealing with registration of post Classic Cars. Mike Shepherd is the RUMster who masterminds number reclamation, and re registration, but new registration is a different thing altogether.
I know this is not much help. There should be folk out there who have been through the latest series of nonsense needed to register a car. It sounds rather tedious, so I am afraid I stopped concentrating.
Saxonette is a good little unit. Though I have no reason to say the Motobecane version is inferior. I had to pull my engine half apart so should there be an issue, might be able to offer advice.
Stuart Cyphus is collecting information (The same might appear in RUMcar news one of these days). However I do not feel I can pass on his new private email right now, as he is rather preoccupied with personnel issues. You can try a PM. I will mention this thread when I chat to him next.
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Good advice Al
It should fit-in as a moped. Compare it to the Replicar Curser which is a 50cc moped.
Unfortunately my Curser is not registered as it came from Austria.
Someone may have a V5 for a Curser which may be helpful for evidence of taxation / MOT class.
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Welcome Dan, May I suggest your first step should be to put your car on the Register of Unusual Microcars, we are authorised representatives for the microcars, especially the rarer ones, with the DVLA. If you go to our web site and click 'About the Register', you will find the up-to-date information about how to register by contacting Alastair Lauchland. Please give him as much information you have about the car and its past history. The DVLA rules and regulations about getting it road legal at the moment are very fluid but our DVLA contact Mike Shepherd is doing his very best to keep up with the ever changing situation at the moment so that we can keep our members informed via the Forum and also our magazine RUMCAR NEWS. Jean
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Good advice Al
It should fit-in as a moped. Compare it to the Replicar Curser which is a 50cc moped.
Unfortunately my Curser is not registered as it came from Austria.
Someone may have a V5 for a Curser which may be helpful for evidence of taxation / MOT class.
No Austrian paperwork, Barry? Surely Curser are a known British make, as there were road going cars back in the day. Unless they went in as Q reg. Which is the sess pit created for things they wished not to know about. But I thought the target market was provisional drivers, as much as anything. That means a definite registration in the correct category. Or are they playing the 'We cannot be arsed to look', card? A great system where they hold the data, refuse to research it, if they feel awkward, nor make it available for you to research your own car. Yet for a fiver they will happily go through microfiche records and pull out a lot of docs for continually registered old cars. A bargain. Its all a bit of a lottery. But some good outside info, and allies are worth having, so Jean's confirmation over my comments are welcome news.
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As I understand it Al there were about 100 cursers made. They did not quite fill the needs of the 16ers market. Too expensive because they were built around a Suzuki CS50 (or similar) so were already the price of a moped before becoming a three wheeler. Then, there was the problem that they were redundant to the 16 year old as soon as they reached 17. Alan Hatswell said that he sold more to older people who did not want to bother taking a driving test. So, 50 were sold in the UK. Single seat. The next 50 went to Austria as two seaters. (Roughly). My car was one of the first to go to Austria but was never put on the road or registered. Hence practically no miles on the clock. Where are the other Austrian cars???
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Interesting demigraphics. Cursers are not as commonly seen about as Bamby, Yet the numbers made are not far off. Then the Austrian lot seem to be hiding too. All a bit odd, but that;'s Microcars.
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May be Mylius Norbert may be able to obtain some information about the Austrian ones for us.
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This thread is very messy !
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Thanks for the responses everyone!
Im still slightly unclear on the steps I should take to try and get the Comtesse registered... The first thing I will do though, is put the car on the Register of Unusual Microcars as Jean suggested, and take it from there.
I did notice at the bottom of the registration form that it says to return it together with "S.A.E FOR RETURN OF REGISTRATION CERTIFICATE" - What is this?
I'll report back with any progress.
Regards,
Dan
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Stamped, Addressed Envelope!
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Dan
Keep an eye on the other similar thread, Casalini Sulky
http://www.rumcars.org/forum/index.php?topic=5307.0
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From a quick serch of this very forum is the complex posting below.
Quote from: cuscus47 on December 31, 2011, 06:37:20 PM
I Have a Mini Comtess with V5c all duly registered et al but currently on SORN. It doesn't have a Q plate
On front of V5 states " 1. was registered and/or used. Declared manufactured 1975."
On second page states
Date of first registration 08 04 1975.
Date of first registration in the UK 09 02 2005.
Make... Acoma.
Body Type.... Tricycle.
Taxation Class.... Tricycle.
Revenue weight.... 135.0 Kg Unladen.
Cylinder capacity.... 47cc, Petrol.
Wheelplan.... 3-wheel.
Type approval number.... 98/69/EC
etc etc etc. No further info on it after colour.
This was Stutart's old MC. :) Ian.
That there is indeed my old Mini Comtesse which went to Ian last year. Note it states "Date of first registration 8/4/75" & "Date of first registration in UK 9/2/05". All MINI Comtesse's have the date of the French equivalent of their original type approval stamped on the chassis plate, which is that 8/4/75 date in this case. It is a recognised date upon the recognised chassis plate therefore certainly back when mine was registered here in 2005, that stamped date was evidence enough of its year of manufacturer, therefore ANY Mini Comtesse presented at that time would have been declared by the DVLA as being April 1975 despite the Mini Comtesse actually having been in production from 1972 to 1979-80ish. I don't know if ALL Funny French Fhings have the "Type Approval" date stamped on all their chassis plates, but that's the way it worked back in 2005 for my Mini Comtesse.
I didn't register mine. I bought it fully taxed. mot'ed & registered from Tony Yorston of Lesctershire in September 2006. I don't have his contact details to hand, but Jean may well. I never renewed the MoT on it due to every tester in Oxfordshire at the time refusing point-blank to test it due to its size "not fitting their equipment". This being before I studied the MOT testers rulebook which says smallness of size isn't an excuse not to test, they just have to do it the hard way rolling around on the floor. By the time I found that out I'd lost intrest & gone onto other things.
Of the Crayford cars which have been flagged up occasionaly in this topic, basically forget all about them for the duration of this particular subject, ie, registering a Pans Permis car in 2012. The Crayfords were a batch of William/Lawil's brought in by Crayford the convertable car maker in the late 1960s and were all registered as brand-new cars at that time under the Crayford name. They were not registered as Williams or Lawil's, but as an already-recognised OTHER type of vehicle. (Crayford). Plus in the 1960s it was just fill out the details in the ledger & theres your number to slap on it. Therefore the Crayfords will serve absolute NO use at all to getting a recent-import non-UK registered Comtesse/William/Lawil/Mini Cat/Splatwagon etc etc a registration in 2012. In fact anyone with a Willam or Lawil would be far better off in my opinion in flogging it & putting the money towards getting hold of a Crayford!
On a more general note, I had to smile when Alan showed me this thread this morning. I remember when I got my Mini Comtesse. Half of you on here sat there & laughed at me. Now you all want a French Thing..... ;)
Stuart.
All good information, thanks.
It would be interesting to see the chassis plate on a Crayford (Willam /Lawil) I wonder if it is a 'Lawil' branded plate. It would be good to see a picture of Al's Chassis plate.
I have several Sans Permis and I laugh every time I see them. My boys also have a laugh driving them round the garden as they cost less than a small quad bike and unlike the Isetta, it doesn't matter too much if they hit a tree!
You will note some useful info from this posting.
Matters arising.
The type approval number is quoted. Its therefore a recognised car. End of.
Revenue weight is a matter of record at 135 kg. Its a moped, or light car. No arguments.
In principle then DVLA already have the information to hand to register any Comtesse without dicking around. For they have the above info, backed up by the info, probably the same, on my car just sold. I cannot see that there both being exported removes the records from the database as a basic set of facts on a European car that might be presented for registration.
The DVLA site did have a pretty good set of pages on registering vehicles, but as I say, I have not done one for a long time. I am sure someone once directed me to an independent site that had a very good resource on all this. Wonder if it was Feds, The FBHVC.
I am aware that the Crayford mentioned is 99% certain just sold again, and for more than I got for it, proving my case on that collectable. But again its got a bona fida period registration, which helps.
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Thanks for the responses everyone!
The first thing I will do though, is put the car on the Register of Unusual Microcars as Jean suggested, and take it from there.
I did notice at the bottom of the registration form that it says to return it together with "S.A.E FOR RETURN OF REGISTRATION CERTIFICATE" - What is this?
Dear Dan, Upon registering your car you will receive among other things a Registration Card for the car with its unique Rumcar number which remains with the car for its life time, which you are asked to pass on should you ever sell it, as well as a windscreen sticker. The reason for asking for a stamped addressed envelope is so that these may be sent to you together with a welcome letter explaining what services we can offer you. We need to try to keep our costs as low as possible because as you can appreciate we are not a Club so there are no annual fees to offset our expenses which we try to keep as low as possible. We hope soon to be able offer a fully computerised service, so the postal services are not involved.
Unfortunately these things take someone with expert knowledge to set them up, and it is only recently one our members has offered his expertise to drag us into the 21st Century!
I hope anyone reading this will bear with us, we are getting there at long last. Jean
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Unfortunately, Big Al, it is useless referring people to the facts of what used to happen when trying to register some of these unusual cars, especially the imported 'sans permis' types recently imported from the Continent. DVLA has changed all the rules and is still doing so, so what was acceptable in 2015 is not acceptable now. As I have said before, Mike Shepherd (mike_microman@yahoo.com) our link person with the DVLA and the Federation is doing his very best to keep up-to-date with the current very fluid situation. Once we have all the details known about a particular vehicle on our Register, we are in a better position to advise the owner how to proceed to get it 'road legal'.
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No no no Dan is asking what is the registration that comes back in his stamped, addressed envelope surely ? This is Jean talking remember . Dan this is the registration with RUM and nothing else . That in itself won't help your case though
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Hi everyone, I've trimmed out a couple of posts to start a separate thread, chatting about Mini Comtesse's in general. Please can we try and keep this one to the subject of helping Dan to get his registration sorted out. Thanks