What did you do today?

[fried onions]

I thought it was 70 plates now.

[paulplom]

70 came out last year didn't they?

[Hooli]

70 was about August?

[paulplom]

Yup

[fried onions]

Well that logic is as clear as mud. Does anyone even care about new registrations now?

[mercrocker]

Nope. Still don't understand them. Or care.

[mercrocker]

In contrast, I still remember a few of the "firsts" I spotted each 1st August when these things were of interest....

First "F" - August 1st 1967 (this was the year the changeover occurred in August rather than January thus shortening the reign of "E") Rover 2000.
First "G" - August 1st 1968 Renault 4
First "H" - August 1st 1969 Reliant 3/25 (or possibly a 3/30)

I didn't bother spotting new plates before that as January was far too cold to be hanging about in a village where only about 3 people ever bought new cars. I do remember thinking there was a certain symmetry in each successive make of car beginning with the letter "R" but this was broken the following year when I saw my first J plate - on a Capri.

[fried onions]

It used to be interesting and 'a thing', but I always thought the A plates were the ones to have. The reason being, it's the first letter of the alphabet and just looks good.

[mercrocker]

Do you mean the "A" suffix? Relatively few authorities got to issue them because they simply didn't run out of the reversed combinations. Suffix-issues were standardised on "B" during 1964 whilst some areas (like South Kesteven in Lincs) were still using letters-before-numbers (My old Honda C102 was WVL835 but first registered in '64). Unfortunately, as with so many other registration-related points of interest it has been buggered up by the re-issues - for some time the old "A" suffixes were dragged out of the "Unissued" drawer and slapped on anything that came back on the road making anything properly registered that way look equally suspect.

I do agree that "A" prefix plates look good because they represented another turning point in UK registrations and added a novel "newness" to cars that wore them. Probably more so than back in 1963 because of the phased introduction.....

If you like distinctive plates (I prefer the one that came with the car, provided it is correct) an A1 - A9 prefix plate is still a cheap way to add a bit of kudos to your car, especially if the remaining 3 letters are not considered important.

[fried onions]

Yes I was thinking about the A prefix. It's immaterial really but I think if I were around at the time I'd prefer an A to anthing that came afterwards. My Minor has a Surrey registration - PL - but is preceded by four numbers, in 1962. This shows that Surrey were running out of 3 letter 3 number combinations and went back to the much earlier series, in reverse.