For those interested in old cars.

[steve1]

Howden High St today. Didn't get chance to speak to the driver.

 

steve

 

 

[steve1]

It was powered by this.

 

Incidentally, not sure on the legality of no mudguards.

 

steve

 

 

[alastairq]

23 minutes ago, steve1 said:

Incidentally, not sure on the legality of no mudguards.

  Technically, unlawful to drive on public highway without.

Not enough Plod on duty to bother these days.  [A case of, if no harm/damage being done, why bother reporting?]

I have seen/used clear Perspex mudguards, positioned verrrrry close to the tyres before...back when we were bothered if we had a tail light out before going out on a Friday night? [Guaranteed to get you a 'pull' in some parts of the country, back in the '60's and '70's?]

Nowadays, the 'don't care ' attitude seems to have permeated the trafpols as well?  {I think the Humberside trafpol is on leave at the moment?]

 

Reg number plate font dodgy as well...but who am I to complain, when I've been pootling around in my Muzzie on slightly sub-sized B&W plates for a few years now...

[For number plate legality, what about all those highly valued Jagwar E-types running around with their front reg  numbers , which will be stuck-together vinyl digits, stuck onto the sloping fronts of their bonnets?  Not complying with the 'vertical' legal requirement one bit?]

 

All a bit laissez faire towards old or spiffing motorcars these days?  Never mind all those Harley Davidsons [aka, US version of Massey Fergusons?] with their rear number plates the size of a Bognor postcard....and equally difficult to single out the reg number from all the  other ghumph they put on them? I'd have to knock them off their bikes just to get a chance to read their reg numbers!

Still,  I don't suppose I can talk, seeing as my Cannon has its reg number made up of stick-on vinyl numbers etc one used to be able to buy without producing  birth certificates, etc....stuck on the front of the bonnet /engine cover. The nosecone wasn't big enough to hold the reg number, neither was there sufficient room under the nosecone, to fit a number plate without it clouting the road, or getting knocked off every time I got full lock?  It could be seen from 20 paces away, quite clearly, providing one wasn't sitting on the ground. [Standing up instead]...Not a very big car at all, the Cannon....Then I went to enormous trouble to make up extended rear light supports sticking out the back, simply because of the spare wheel carrier...and the hangles of visibility etc, o'fishily, measured, they were, too....

Let's see what we can get away with?

[MrWolf]

The law on American style number plates has been relaxed a little in the case of American cars, because it isn't always physically possible to fit a UK size number plate.

 

The police take no notice of blinged up new Range Rovers sporting black and silver number plates which aren't legal on any vehicle in the UK manufactured after 1973.

[boxbrownie]

Those headers are illegal also....poor little fingers might wonder why they are glowing red and try to find out!

 

Its a sweet looking vehicle though, if I were plod I’d pull it......and ask for a go 

[Hobby]

5 hours ago, MrWolf said:

The police take no notice of blinged up new Range Rovers sporting black and silver number plates which aren't legal on any vehicle in the UK manufactured after 1973.

 

No. You can have a black and silver plate on any car manufactured before 1 January 1975. So my 1974 P6 could have them, but as it came with yellow ones it wouldn't be authentic. 

 

https://insidedvla.blog.gov.uk/2015/11/17/whats-the-story-with-black-and-silver-number-plates/#:~:text=Vehicles that can display black,'historic vehicles' tax class.

[Enterprisingwestern]

10 hours ago, alastairq said:

..But inflating a dead turkey is entirely another matter in France!

 

Depends via which orifice and what with, it's actually compulsory in some parts of more enlightened rural France.

 

Mike.

[PhilJ W]

Just now, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

Depends via which orifice and what with, it's actually compulsory in some parts of more enlightened rural France.

 

Mike.

As long as its dead.

[Enterprisingwestern]

Just now, PhilJ W said:

As long as its dead.

 

Not necessarily!

 

Mike.

[MrWolf]

21 minutes ago, Hobby said:

 

No. You can have a black and silver plate on any car manufactured before 1 January 1975. So my 1974 P6 could have them, but as it came with yellow ones it wouldn't be authentic. 

 

https://insidedvla.blog.gov.uk/2015/11/17/whats-the-story-with-black-and-silver-number-plates/#:~:text=Vehicles that can display black,'historic vehicles' tax class.

 

I stand corrected, I read it was sometime in 1973.

I don't recall seeing anything on an M registration with black front and rear or black rear white front. 

 

My original point stands though. There's plenty of posers driving around on black plates that are illegal.

 

 

Edited May 5, 2021 by MrWolf
Stupid autocorrect

[alastairq]

14 minutes ago, MrWolf said:

There's plenty of posers driving around on black plates that are illegal.

 

 There are black plates......and black plates.

My Muzzy is a '67, so could have had black plates, but I do have a set of coloured ones in the boot....

[MrWolf]

If it had been registered in the UK when new, it would have had black plates.

Reflective plates began to appear in the late 60s as an option, not a legal requirement. White front, black rear being common. I had a 1968 Herald years ago which had white / yellow plates from new. They were aluminium with rivetted on black plastic letters.

There's lots of peculiarities around things like number plates and indicators etc.

[PhilJ W]

Reflective number plates became compulsory part way through the L suffix registrations but very few vehicles with that suffix went on the road with white on black number plates. There are always exceptions, London Transport were allowed to carry on using white on black even into the reversed year letter (prefix) era. I was told that this was because of London Buses being rebuilt every few years at Chiswick and in doing so the identities being transferred from one bus to another. As the rebuilt bus left Chiswick it took the identity of another identical bus that was going into works. That identity depended on registrations being painted on and/or using transfers,  if they had to fit reflective plates they would have to be transferred over from one bus to another. The use of white on black plates continued even after Chiswick closed.

[MrWolf]

January 1, 1973 as you say, part way through the L suffix. It was apparently the first major change (other than a few tweaks to the digit size allowing for the A suffix to fit on existing sized number plate in 1963) since the number plate was introduced in 1903.

[APOLLO]

2 hours ago, Hobby said:

 

No. You can have a black and silver plate on any car manufactured before 1 January 1975. So my 1974 P6 could have them, but as it came with yellow ones it wouldn't be authentic. 

 

https://insidedvla.blog.gov.uk/2015/11/17/whats-the-story-with-black-and-silver-number-plates/#:~:text=Vehicles that can display black,'historic vehicles' tax class.

 

Thanks for that - So my Rover IS now legal !!!!!

 

Built in June 1973 she is the 18th from the last saloon off the production line (HM The Queen has the last one), and when I bought her in 1982 she had dealer fitted reflective plates. I fitted nice black / silver ones 1n 1983 knowing they weren't quite legal. Never been an issue at all the last 39 years !! The reflective ones are in the garage.

 

 

Brit15

Edited May 5, 2021 by APOLLO

[MrWolf]

"Changes to Black & Silver Number Plates from 01.01.2021 | Federation of British Historic Vehicle Clubs" https://fbhvc.co.uk/news/article/changes-to-black-silver-number-plates-from-01012021

 

I think that this is where the confusion arose, but you can (now) have black and silver plated on a 1973 Rover. The dealer was complying with the law at the time by fitting the reflective ones that you have in the garage.

[Kickstart]

14 hours ago, boxbrownie said:

Yes, and it can be the result of a lot of silicone rubber used in vehicles after a fire, one part of my job was to photograph and detail post “thermal events” on vehicles and the H&S regime was intense, get HF on your skin and there’s no cure, it eats though to your bones and can migrate.....extremely nasty indeed.

 

Otherwise it’s fine 

A friend did a load of checking up on this a while back. There is a medicine to treat it, but it is expensive and with a short shelf life so rarely kept in hospitals given the rare need for it.

 

14 hours ago, MrWolf said:

 

Then you had the new generation EFI cars, which carried on pumping fuel under pressure after a collision or other cause of leak. It was a while before we got a cut-off that actually worked. (Everyone!)

 

Alfa on the gtv6 (early 80s injected car) had a cut off that worked. Worked rather too well and stranded a fair few cars where the owners didn’t know how to reset it, and hence quite commonly bypassed!

 

All the best

 

Katy

[PatB]

9 hours ago, boxbrownie said:

Those headers are illegal also....poor little fingers might wonder why they are glowing red and try to find out!

 

Its a sweet looking vehicle though, if I were plod I’d pull it......and ask for a go 

No worse than a (perfectly legal) motorcycle exhaust downpipe. Thin steel headers cool down pretty quickly after switching off anyway, so the period of hazard isn't very long.

[peanuts]

2 hours ago, Kickstart said:

A friend did a load of checking up on this a while back. There is a medicine to treat it, but it is expensive and with a short shelf life so rarely kept in hospitals given the rare need for it.

 

Alfa on the gtv6 (early 80s injected car) had a cut off that worked. Worked rather too well and stranded a fair few cars where the owners didn’t know how to reset it, and hence quite commonly bypassed!

 

All the best

 

Katy

Re HF there is an antidote for burns from HF we were required to carry it when I worked for a hazardous waste company "just in case " .had to be applied within first 30 mins after recieving the burn along with a thourough irigation with clean water or the burn would prove fatal due to the HF getting into your blood stream and atacking anything made of calsium in the body . The antidote is not carried on ambulances nor held within A&E so if you were not carrying any it was curtains hence we had to carry with us sufficient to treat yourself on all our vehicles .it was one of the things our H&S were very keen on with supplies of update antidote in plentyfull supply .horrible scarey nasty stuff treated accordingly when found

[peanuts]

Yes that is a lancia beta it's not a mirage or a pile of rust 

[alastairq]

Or, someone has gone to the trouble of tidying up a pile of rust?

[Like building sand castles on the beach?]

 

 

[alastairq]

Re- reflective number plates?

 

I recall, when I started my legal motoring life back in the late 1960's, that many owners even went to the trouble of retrofitting reflective number plates to their cars.

Back then, black & white number plates were seen as 'old fashioned', almost divisive.

So a cheap set of reflective plates brought one's chariot up to date, so to speak....

 

Now the roles are reversed......and the black & white plates are being fitted almost as a sort of 'reverse snobbery' on old motors?

 

Personally I couldn't care less....the B&W lates on my Muzzie were already fitted when I bought it, although it's first motts were conducted with reflective plates on, which I have in the boot. I've just been too lazy to do anything about them.  Mind, the gucci B&W plates are a bit flimsy of fitment....they flap a bit I think?

On my Dellow, the B&W plates are, I think, original.  Which is why, despite their being a bit battered and cracked [they're stamped ally] I repair them!  That, and being a titewad not wanting to replace them with posh, clean, new ones?

Also, more to the point, the font is as  was lawfully required back in 1952 [when it was registered, new, on delivery], and I don't think I can get, cheap enough for my pension, a set with that old font? The legal font changed once or twice from then, up to the late 1960's, and is quite an obvious change.

[Hobby]

Personally I'd rather fit what the car came with, hence, as I said, reflective plates on my P6.. I'd agree with the reverse snobbery bit, though that seems to apply to anything these days...

Edited May 6, 2021 by Hobby

[APOLLO]

I must have been a reverse snob back in 1982/3 !!!!!!!!!!!!. My plates were a bit difficult, well the rear one being very large. A local car factor got them made, they are perspex with the silver numbers engraved on the reverse side. I always thought my Rover just didn't look right with the reflective plates, being a late 50's designed car.

 

I think the "new" Rover 75 has somewhat similar large rear plates.

 

Brit15

 

 

 

 

[boxbrownie]

10 hours ago, APOLLO said:

 

Thanks for that - So my Rover IS now legal !!!!!

 

Built in June 1973 she is the 18th from the last saloon off the production line (HM The Queen has the last one), and when I bought her in 1982 she had dealer fitted reflective plates. I fitted nice black / silver ones 1n 1983 knowing they weren't quite legal. Never been an issue at all the last 39 years !! The reflective ones are in the garage.

 

 

Brit15

Glad you didn’t claim it was owned by the Queen like the majority of classic car owners do 

 

Beautiful cars, I had a job once to photograph a footballer who had opened a pub in Brentwood, he picked me up at the office and on the way to his pub it stuttered and slowed, he then turned a valve (or something) on the dash to use the “reserve” tank and off we went again.......also I loved the pull out walnut tray on the dashboard between driver and passenger, I was dead impressed as a spotty 17 year old, not by the footballer, just the car.....’kin hate football