Black and Silver Number Plates

[david painter]

I have had a email from DVSA reference Black and Silver plates see below
Dave
It will be specified in law from 1 January 2021 that only vehicles manufactured before 1 January 1980 are eligible to display “black and silver” plates.

This means that as a supplier you:
can only produce black and silver plates for those vehicles registered prior to 1 January 1980 that have also been licensed in the historic tax class

[MarinaCoupe]

So that means that future vehicles that become eligible for Historic Vehicle tax status, will not be able to use black & white plates i.e. all Itals.

[david painter]

Yes Chris that's how I read it also of note was i had to be registered in the historic class
Dave

[JubileeNut]

My Jubilee will be able to have them as it is class is Historic and older.
But I don't want to swap out the original plates it has so it will be staying yellow and white plates.

[mickthefitter]

Smacks of somebody in officialdom changing their mind. What is the point of a vehicle made after 1972, up to the end of 1979, and registered as historic, being legal for ‘old fashioned’ number plates, when they were never meant to be fitted with them in period? And then thereafter you’ve got to stick to reflective number plates on your ‘new’ post-1979 historic vehicle? As somebody who likes my historic vehicles to look in-period (despite my liking for hot rods and custom cars in the mid-70s) I never liked the idea of cars getting the go ahead to wear black and silver plates on the occasion of their 40th birthday just because it coincided with their eligibility to become historic and VED free. It seemed to me like a decision made by someone who knew nothing at all about historic vehicles. But, you know, some people do it anyway - not long ago I saw an F prefix Mercedes Benz (1988) illegally driving around on black and silver plates. So now someone at the DVLA presumably has decided a W suffix...I dunno...Golf or Cortina 80 on plates the same style as you’d see on an Austin Seven ‘is not right’. I like black and silver plates and my ‘M’ reg Mini 850 came with them in 2009 and I thought they were right, because I could have sworn I saw them on 1973 cars as a kid, and I’ve got some BL brochures with 'M' reg model year cars like Maxis shown with black ‘M’ reg plates, but it turned out the printers doctored an earlier photo to save them having to do a re-shoot to re-issue a similar brochure during 1973. My memory still thinks I didn’t see blanket reflective plates until my dad bought an ‘N’ reg Puch moped. But apparently the law said 31/12/72 was the cut off point. Of course you can put reflective plates on anything. I used to have a copy of Classic and Sportscar magazine from the early 80s, and the cover cars were two 1950s Ferrari sports cars and both were wearing reflective number plates. One had a pre-suffix six digit registration, but the other was on a 1975/76 ‘P’ registration. Not a single comment was made on the authenticity of the number plates or the ‘P’ reg registration number during the article within the magazine. It was all about the history of the cars and the driving experience. Which I suppose puts my whinging about black plates on late 70s cars into context!

[ScreamingLordStokes]

Hmm, i reckon the only black and silver plates that suit 70s cars are the acrylic plates with the cool stripey (not ribbed) letters/numbers.
The eleventh plate down:

http://www.chestnut-registrations.co.uk ... lates.aspx

I can recall this style of plate fitted to plenty of cars in the 70s.

[PHUQ]

I'm pretty sure the introduction of the rolling "exemption" for number plates in line with the historic vehicle tax class was nothing more than a mistake made by someone who had put 2 and 2 together and made 5 that they have finally decided to rectify...

Don't think there's any more to it than that.

[balmy]

Yep and it’s taken this long to realise the mistake