A tale of two numbers

[Bob Purton]

An envelope popped through my door this morning from the DVLA. It was the results of a search I paid for on my Isetta "Thumper". I didn't know you could do this until Stuart suggested it. When I bought thumper it bore a 1963 A prefix number AJB 257A although the v5 said it was made in 1960. I was determined to get to the bottom of why it has this inappropriate number. Sure enough the search revealed that in 1982 its original number 943 CD had indeed been sold to a Miss C.Dunn of Newcastle upon tyne. Shame as its a good number. Now I know the car and its current number do not belong I think I will apply for a true age related one from DVLA.    943 CD is now resident on the back of a 2007 Porsche. What do you think my chances are of being allocated Iset 300 or Bob 123?
The search only cost a fiver and well worth doing if you need some history on your car. I also found out that I'm the eleventh owner and that the car was originally blue, later white before it became red. If you need to do this form V888 is the one you need. Many thanks to Lord Cyphus.

[Big Al]

Thumper, colour scheme supplied by Baboon Bot Finishers, Isle off Wight. They did many a car over the years.

[Bob Purton]

In the well known words of Edmund Blackadder  "I dont give a baboons bottom ! "  

[Jonathan Poll]

An envelope popped through my door this morning from the DVLA. It was the results of a search I paid for on my Isetta "Thumper". I didn't know you could do this until Stuart suggested it. When I bought thumper it bore a 1963 A prefix number AJB 257A although the v5 said it was made in 1960. I was determined to get to the bottom of why it has this inappropriate number. Sure enough the search revealed that in 1982 its original number 943 CD had indeed been sold to a Miss C.Dunn of Newcastle upon tyne. Shame as its a good number. Now I know the car and its current number do not belong I think I will apply for a true age related one from DVLA.    943 CD is now resident on the back of a 2007 Porsche. What do you think my chances are of being allocated Iset 300 or Bob 123?
The search only cost a fiver and well worth doing if you need some history on your car. I also found out that I'm the eleventh owner and that the car was originally blue, later white before it became red. If you need to do this form V888 is the one you need. Many thanks to Lord Cyphus.

Hey Bob,

  What sort of extra info could I get about my nobel? Could I get all the names and details of the previous owners?
Hopefully it could explain if my Nobel is 58 or 59... (I said before, papers said it is 59, but they started in 58, so you said you guess the dealer sold it then,)

How do I find outthe info? I have my V5, in my name, do I just send it of to them with a fiver and ask them, or is it on the internet?

[Bob Purton]

Hi Johnathan. You just send them a completed form V888. You get all there is on record for that vehicle. I cant say what they have on your Nobel but its worth a fiver to find out. On the form you have to explain why you want the information. I found the V888 form on the DVLA website and downloaded it. Let me know how you get on.

[jackiep]

That VERY interesting stuff . Glad you told us how to do that .V888  Ummm
        Well the way you wizzed off after Bromley Pagent I thought you WERE a Porsche ( sorry cant spell it !! )
     You see I am rather ignorant on these up market things & the people who drive them too .
        There are some very ignorant drivers  on the road around Bromley especially on a sunny week end & in upmarket cars too.
       Yesterday a woman in the MOST enormous Volvo  I have ever seen was doing a 3 point turn outside a school .
         To give you an idea of size it was 3 bubble cars long & at LEAST 2 high & almost 2 bubbles wide .
           I hope she has to pay  18 time the amount of road tax  & a treble MOT too that we mere mortals have to
             cough up each year just to get around .Thank god I was in my Yaris & not Bubbly, she would not have seen me .
   

[Big Al]

That VERY interesting stuff . Glad you told us how to do that .V888  Ummm
        Well the way you wizzed off after Bromley Pagent I thought you WERE a Porsche ( sorry cant spell it !! )
     You see I am rather ignorant on these up market things & the people who drive them too .
        There are some very ignorant drivers  on the road around Bromley especially on a sunny week end & in upmarket cars too.
       Yesterday a woman in the MOST enormous Volvo  I have ever seen was doing a 3 point turn outside a school .
         To give you an idea of size it was 3 bubble cars long & at LEAST 2 high & almost 2 bubbles wide .
           I hope she has to pay  18 time the amount of road tax  & a treble MOT too that we mere mortals have to
             cough up each year just to get around .Thank god I was in my Yaris & not Bubbly, she would not have seen me .
   

And therein lays the problem. A % of these types are out of control and/or not concentrating which puts you off venturing forth in your small car. Out here the problem is slightly different as you meet these selfish idiots on country roads and despite they being oversize in a four wheel drive you are expected to jump in the ditch and scratch your car up so they can have the middle of a road quite suitable for 2 A35 to pass each other. The get really animated if you do not yield. Fortunately tatty old cars like my Pug 405 are equal in bluff status and the old van wins all arguments save trucks and tractors who are tops out here. A micro, they would attempt to drive over you, I am serious! Naught worse than an angry upstart in an oversized Tonka Toy. Trouble is others are driven by 'Mrs Farmer' who knows what she is doing so you cannot be aggressive till it is rather to late, though certain models are not owned by country dwellers as they are actually not much cope in the dirt so those can be approached with some 'attitude'.
To put the uselessness of some of these folk in perspective I have driven passed stuck 4 wheel drives by use of the pavement when out in snow in both Trojan and Schmitt.
Why would anyone want such a thing in that well known off road area, Bromley though? A Yaris sounds far more sense.

[richard]

jackie really ! the most enormous Volvo you have ever seen - you should get out more 

[Scootacar_mk1]

the strange thing with the number on your isetta is that it makes the car appear newer than it actually is, which i thought wasnt possible?

[Stuart Cyphus]

the strange thing with the number on your isetta is that it makes the car appear newer than it actually is, which i thought wasnt possible?

 When the DVLA introduced "age-related" numbers in 1983, the dateless ex-Scottish numbers used were originally reserved only for pre 1956 vehicles. From 1983 to 1990 any vehicle aged between 1956 & 1963 got an unissued plate from its local area with an "A" at the end as only a handful of places actually exhausted their A-reg plates in 1963, if they actually issued any anyway,. (in fact many areas did not go over to the year letter until 1965 but I digress) Thus you have the "proper" age-related plates, such as SSV 123, and what I call the "Age-related A-plate" such as Thumper has. If you know your plates the way I do, they usualy stand out a mile due to the first letter on the plate being "too high" through the alpabet to be genuine 1963-issue (though not always, as Thumper proves).   From 1990 the Scottish dateless plates were extended to all vehicles up to 1963 & so the Age-related A-plate went out of use.

[Big Al]

Your not allowed to buy or swap a plate forward but can have one issued so in other words. That is consistent then. I had a Goggo that was on, I think it was, a Y plate. Like I say DVLA is an illogical mess. Whole thing wants reorganising and based on ownership related to VIN plates and numbers on owners. That simplifies ownership/selling/theft and simplifies tax and MOT with insurance moving to drivers and needs far less people to run it. About 100 Stuarts on computers would do! The saving would go a long way to covering the expense backed by the greater difficulty in committing and getting away with crime and infractions. Not sure how revenue fits in though, which is the reason for DVLA really, so it will not happen as it is money not service that is at issue. That is best collected if the public cannot understand the system - see tax return. As an aside if you go to DVLA land you will find many giant jeep things with personalised numbers on barging about. So nothing suspicious there then and not Micro friendly I suspect.
I really need to move to my favoured Island of Little Ranting.

[wilksie]

Bob, I found your post about your Isetta's original registration number very interesting. I am sure it is not news to you that registration number codes from the 'CD' series had been allocated to the Brighton area from March 1960 onwards. But here the plot thickens. You said that this Isetta was first registered in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. So why the Brighton number? Was it perhaps a special car that was used for other purposes initially? Of course it is well known that many Isettas, especially the later ones, spent some time in a dealer's showroom before they were first registered, but not usually with a Brighton number.

The other interesting fact is the low number of that registration. I am aware of several road test cars and press cars with 'CD' numbers, but they all had four figures (3288 CD = 1960 road test car, 3738 CD = 1961 advert car, 9107 CD = press car). I know of a few other Isettas with 'CD' registrations which, presumably, just happened to be registered in Brighton, but again they all have two letters and four numbers. Is yours perhaps an Isetta with a very special history?

[Stuart Cyphus]

 Nothing too unusual in British-built Isetta's having Brighton numbers, it just means it was part of a batch of cars registred by the Brighton factory themselves before being distributed to the dealers wherever they be in the country. Such a thing used to be fairly common back in the day....   

[Bob Purton]

That makes sense Stuart but my car was originally sold in Brighton anyway. 

Wilksie, I think you mis read my post, it was first sold by Redhill motors, Brighton, the registration number was sold on in 1982 to a person living in Newcastle upon tyne. The car didnt start out there. I would love to think that there was something special about my car but I fear not. There is a reg number just one digit away from my original one which was 943 CD and that is 942 CD and I would have loved to have bought it to get a number that was almost right back on the car but they want £3k for it! I will just have to take my chances with a three digit three number age related replacement. Stuart, whats it likely to be?

[Stuart Cyphus]

 I will just have to take my chances with a three digit three number age related replacement. Stuart, whats it likely to be?

 It'll be something like 843 XUA (for example). Back when I used to keep up my subs to various number plate clubs I could have told you exactly what block of the new age-Related numbers were allocated to which district & so have forcast your number to within 100, but after a while I found I knew more about plates & the registration system than the clubs I was subscribing to did, plus one  of them told me to my face my knowledge was "pointless and useless", so I resigned from them all & ever since have gone my own way.