Number Plates
Number plates are our business and we have been in business a long time - more than 25 years actually. The main aim of our website is to provide user-friendly searches to make it easy to find the number plate of your choice. However, you may like to know more about how the number plate system began and what categories of car number plates exist. If you are not ready to take all this on board at the moment by all means go to number plates search option and have fun experimenting with ideas or use the search box at the top of the page. Otherwise, read on.
Short History of Number Plates
In 1903, the Motor Car Act was passed which required all motor vehicles to be registered with the appropriate local authority from January 1st 1904. However, some authorities began registration as early as late 1903.
Each local authority was allocated one, two or three letters. London, as the largest registration area, was allocated 'A'. 'B' was given to Lancashire as the next largest and so on. Glasgow was given 'G', Edinburgh 'S' and Lanarkshire 'V', these three letters being reserved specifically for Scotland. 'I' and 'Z' were reserved for Ireland, being allocated alphabetically, for example, 'IA' to County Antrim etc.
It is widely known that the first registration issued in London was A 1 and, to secure this for his Napier, Earl Russell queued all night outside the offices.
Obviously as more and more vehicles came onto the roads, authorities would run out of their original allocation or new boroughs would be created and require their own registration codes. In 1905, London was given LC as the first registration area to use up its original 'L' allocations.
In the early days, the registration system was not as tightly regulated as it is today. For example, if a vehicle keeper moved to another registering borough, the vehicle was often re-registered.
By 1932, the two-letter code system was busting at the seams and a third letter had to be added, followed by up to three numbers. so this is where the first, potentially offensive words had to be withheld eg. GOD and SEX. The rapid increase in car ownership after the war was catered for by the obvious step of reversing letters and numbers.
It is interesting that more motorcycles were registered in the 1930's than any other vehicle type. This influenced some authorities to use both their series of three letter combinations at once to avoid having the problem of fitting four-digit numbers onto small, rear motorcycle plates.
It seems that people's sensitivities were much tenderer back then - or perhaps so the "powers that be" thought. For example BF ("bloody fool") was not initially issued but, as the system came under pressure, this combination was released with a preceding letter. However, ABF ("a bloody fool") and UBF were not allowed. neither was 'WC' allowed at first although 'LOO' got past with no problem!
Number plates in more modern times
Again, to respond to an ever-increasing number of vehicles on the roads, the year letter of suffix was introduced in 1963 eg. ADC 167A, where 'A' is the so-called suffix letter.
Another major change happened in 1974, when the hitherto manual system operated by local authorities changed to (yes, you've guessed it) a computerised system. The DVLC (Driver and Vehicle Licensing Centre) at Swansea was formed along with a network of Local Vehicle Licensing Offices (now called LO's or Local Offices).
In 1983, the suffix system had come to an end with the 'Y' registration. Consultation decreed that the year letter should now take the for of a prefix eg. A167 ADC.
At this point, some far-sighted person decided there was no fair way to allocate the numbers 1-20 so these numbers were withheld followed by more attractive numbers during the later releases, such as 30, 50 etc. 33, 44 etc. 100, 200 etc and 111, 222 etc.
Which leads us neatly into the reason you are on the site. Congratulations if you have read this far. You are now ready to explore the vast range of number plates on our site, whether it be a dateless mark (ie. without a year-letter at all), a suffix mark (year letter at the end), a prefix mark (year letter at the front) or a new-style registration (two letters at the front indicating the issuing local office followed by the year identifier followed by three random letters).
Go on, have a go, enter your name, initials, birthday in the search box - good luck!
