N Gauge Forum

General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: LASteve on November 14, 2022, 05:05:58 PM

Title: License Plates
Post by: LASteve on November 14, 2022, 05:05:58 PM
I went to see my dentist this morning. I hadn't noticed the license plate on his car before:

(https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/gallery/127/6889-141122170454.jpeg) (https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/index.php?action=gallery;sa=view&id=127670)
Title: Re: License Plates
Post by: ntpntpntp on November 14, 2022, 05:17:55 PM
I must admit I stared at this for ages until it clicked :)
Title: Re: License Plates
Post by: dannyboy on November 14, 2022, 05:49:14 PM
It took me a while to work out the 'AKY'!  When I lived in England, my dentist always used to smile when I visited - only because my initials are 'DK'.  :)
Title: Re: License Plates
Post by: port perran on November 14, 2022, 05:59:00 PM
That's a great number plate.
Reminds me of my dentist when I was a wee lad. His name was
Mr Howley.
He terrified me aged about 8!
Title: Re: License Plates
Post by: Bob G on November 14, 2022, 06:02:40 PM
I once passed a silver Toyota on the M1 in the UK driven by a blonde, with the plate M1LFH.
She was!

Bob
Title: Re: License Plates
Post by: Bob G on November 14, 2022, 06:03:14 PM
Quote from: port perran on November 14, 2022, 05:59:00 PM
That's a great number plate.
Reminds me of my dentist when I was a wee lad. His name was
Mr Howley.
He terrified me aged about 8!

My dentist in Exeter was Mr Hacker!
Title: Re: License Plates
Post by: Bob G on November 14, 2022, 06:07:16 PM
LO LO
AQ IC
I8 2Q
B4 IP

Title: Re: License Plates
Post by: Ali Smith on November 14, 2022, 08:37:49 PM
I once saw M155PVC. The driver was a lady, but I couldn't tell what she was wearing. I have also spotted MML1K a couple of times, but it was spaced to read MM L1K. Possibly the owner was in the ice cream trade, but possibly not.
Title: Re: License Plates
Post by: Bigmac on November 14, 2022, 08:41:28 PM
i saw OGO2L on a jag many years ago.
Title: Re: License Plates
Post by: martyn on November 14, 2022, 08:48:16 PM
We had a thread on number plates a couple of years ago......

Martyn
Title: Re: License Plates
Post by: Newportnobby on November 14, 2022, 09:59:48 PM
Quote from: martyn on November 14, 2022, 08:48:16 PM
We had a thread on number plates a couple of years ago......


I have a job remembering what I did yesterday so.....................

Saw a Range Rover with the reg 'GUM 800T' once, and one I can't put on the open forum but a blond girl was driving a convertible BMW with a 'laugh out loud/I'm shocked' plate! :goggleeyes:
Title: Re: License Plates
Post by: 5213 65J on November 14, 2022, 11:35:55 PM
I've seen a few over the years but I think the best was a grumbling wedge of orange cheese on Euston Road - a Lamborghini - registration plate - D14BLO.
Title: Re: License Plates
Post by: stevewalker on November 14, 2022, 11:37:18 PM
Long ago, I saw the same car on the M6 a number of times - a Rolls-Royce, with the number BBC1. That must have been worth a bit!
Title: Re: License Plates
Post by: Trainfish on November 15, 2022, 01:59:28 AM
Quote from: Bob G on November 14, 2022, 06:03:14 PM
My dentist in Exeter was Mr Hacker!

I have no idea who my GP is these days but a few years ago it was Dr Hole and guess what I had to see him about one time? Yep  :moony:
Title: Re: License Plates
Post by: LASteve on November 15, 2022, 03:12:54 AM
My own plate is "SW6 4 CFC". Nothing as inventive as the dentist, but if you want to watch Chelsea, the best place is in SW6.

Yeah, I'm a nerd :)
Title: Re: License Plates
Post by: Platy767 on November 15, 2022, 05:36:45 AM
Nothing so clever as the previous, but personalised plates are/were popular in NSW. I had little black and white MN00 plates on various motorbikes for a long time until I finally surrendered them. They were only a one off $25 fee in 1976.
Title: Re: License Plates
Post by: Bob G on November 15, 2022, 09:53:01 AM
Quote from: LASteve on November 15, 2022, 03:12:54 AM
My own plate is "SW6 4 CFC". Nothing as inventive as the dentist, but if you want to watch Chelsea, the best place is in SW6.

Yeah, I'm a nerd :)

Or you could be in a dim and distant part of Swindon generating highly polluting greenhouse gases :smiley-laughing:
Title: Re: License Plates
Post by: chrism on November 15, 2022, 10:17:43 AM
Quote from: Bob G on November 15, 2022, 09:53:01 AM
Quote from: LASteve on November 15, 2022, 03:12:54 AM
My own plate is "SW6 4 CFC". Nothing as inventive as the dentist, but if you want to watch Chelsea, the best place is in SW6.

Yeah, I'm a nerd :)

Or you could be in a dim and distant part of Swindon generating highly polluting greenhouse gases :smiley-laughing:

Very dim and distant, Swindon postcodes start with SN1  :smiley-laughing:
Title: Re: License Plates
Post by: woodbury22uk on November 15, 2022, 11:09:56 AM
Shortly before the general introduction of the A suffix in 1964, in July of that year Kent issued a reversed version of its first number series which was D. Unsurprisingly the single digits were applied to cars owned by the County Council, some used for chauffering dignitaries around. I recall seeing some lined up in front of County Hall. Looks like generous pre-decimalisation pricing now:-

1 D
2 D
3 D
4 D etc.

My Mum's white Anglia estate had to wait for 2452 D.

Useful site for getting the right aged registration numbers on your N vehicles for the pre-1972 period:-

https://www.oldclassiccar.co.uk/registrations/reg-letters.htm (https://www.oldclassiccar.co.uk/registrations/reg-letters.htm)

Title: Re: License Plates
Post by: Dorsetmike on November 15, 2022, 11:38:00 AM
Most appropriate one I recall was a young tearaway in the next building to where I was working; he drove an Escort Mexico  registration APR4T - he certainly was!
Title: Re: License Plates
Post by: Papyrus on November 15, 2022, 05:16:20 PM
Quote from: martyn on November 14, 2022, 08:48:16 PM
We had a thread on number plates a couple of years ago......

Martyn

This one:

https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/index.php?topic=55560.msg739235#msg739235 (https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/index.php?topic=55560.msg739235#msg739235)

started by me, for which I beg forgiveness...

Cheers,

Chris
Title: Re: License Plates
Post by: Dorsetmike on November 15, 2022, 05:40:14 PM
We don't see any bumper stickers these days, used to et some good chuckles with some of them, the one that sticks in my mind
"Get really stoned - drink wet cement"
Title: Re: License Plates
Post by: Jon898 on November 15, 2022, 08:37:11 PM
Quote from: Dorsetmike on November 15, 2022, 05:40:14 PM
We don't see any bumper stickers these days, used to et some good chuckles with some of them, the one that sticks in my mind
"Get really stoned - drink wet cement"

In a "green" vein, I've seen:

Earth First
We Can Mine The Other Planets Later
And, on a Tesla:

This Car Runs On Coal

Jon
Title: Re: License Plates
Post by: Railwaygun on November 16, 2022, 01:30:59 AM
I've seen 2-Rollers in w london, a white one , WOM 13, and also PEN 15
Title: Re: License Plates
Post by: woodbury22uk on November 16, 2022, 07:20:34 AM
Quote from: Railwaygun on November 16, 2022, 01:30:59 AM
I've seen 2-Rollers in w london, a white one , WOM 13, and also PEN 15

Not to explicitly mention the plate on Fiona Richmond's yellow E Type Jaguar which I saw regularly in the early 1970s on the King's Road area. But I will provide a link to it.

https://forum.etypeuk.com/viewtopic.php?t=1411#:~:text=In%20the%20early%2070%27s%20porn%20baron%20Paul%20Raymond,had%20a%20lot%20of%20press%20coverage.%20David%20Jones
Title: Re: License Plates
Post by: PLD on November 16, 2022, 07:45:44 AM
Quote from: Railwaygun on November 16, 2022, 01:30:59 AM
I've seen 2-Rollers in w london, a white one , WOM 13, and also PEN 15
One of the fascinating things in the previous thread was how many different members claimed to have spotted the latter on so many different vehicles in so many different places despite photo evidence of the ownership and actual vehicle being provided...  :hmmm:

Either it gets swapped around at least twice a week or there's a worrying number of members who really ought not to be driving due to their eye-sight deficiency...   :worried:  ::)
Title: Re: License Plates
Post by: Trainfish on November 16, 2022, 10:22:36 AM
Bearing in mind that there are at least two possibilities here, PEN 15 and PEN 1 S. I definitely saw the latter when I had much better eyesight in the 1980s. It was at brands hatch on a truck racing day but was owned by a motorbike racer whose name I cannot for the life of me think of right now. Strangely, neither of those numberplates seem to show up on the government database but there are several articles on the Internet regarding both.
Title: Re: License Plates
Post by: TrevL on November 16, 2022, 11:25:43 AM
Steve Parrish perhaps?
Title: Re: License Plates
Post by: Trainfish on November 16, 2022, 11:41:16 AM
Good man! I'm 99% sure you are correct
Title: Re: License Plates
Post by: Trainfish on November 16, 2022, 11:48:11 AM
I stand corrected, it was PEN15
(https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/gallery/127/262-161122114758.png) (https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/index.php?action=gallery;sa=view&id=127708)
Title: Re: License Plates
Post by: Bob G on November 16, 2022, 11:57:58 AM
 :smiley-laughing: :smiley-laughing: :smiley-laughing:
Title: Re: License Plates
Post by: LASteve on November 16, 2022, 06:58:40 PM
When I first moved out here I was highly amused to see :censored: (changed by forum) on an XJ6. Evidently the DMV didn't know much British slang.

More surprising was a Corvette that passed me on the 170 freeway. It had a heart "love" symbol which hopefully I can reproduce here and it read:

8HR♥︎BTN

Usually the DMV are pretty good about spotting that stuff, but this one evidently slipped through the net. Unlike the UK, there are some symbols which can be used on a license plate. The heart, a waving hand, a star, a few others. You can only use one, and it doesn't actually have a value, so if there's another license plate already out there with the same number/letter combination without the symbol you can't use it.

Edit - the censored word started with B, ended with X and had two L's in the middle :)
Title: Re: License Plates
Post by: Trainfish on November 16, 2022, 08:42:55 PM
Nothing wrong with ballbox surely. We used to use them at the snooker club  :hmmm:
Title: Re: License Plates
Post by: Gordon on November 17, 2022, 12:46:49 AM
You could choose your own plate in Germany long before you could do so here. German plates are two or three letters for a city, county or region, two alphas in sequence (ie AA through to ZZ) then numbers. I remember once being overtaken on the Autobahn by a Saab, reg: SA AB 900

As a Yorkshireman I was also amused in Augsburg (Bavaria, area letter A) to be in a traffic jam behind A UP 259
Title: Re: License Plates
Post by: The Q on November 17, 2022, 06:30:16 PM
I remember Steve Parrish having that number on one of those blue  tiny cars for the disabled, mind you he'd replaced the 125cc engine with a very tuned 750cc

I saw the number on the A1 a couple of years ago, it was fitted to a Porsche .
Title: Re: License Plates
Post by: LASteve on November 18, 2022, 12:44:15 AM
I'll have to dig though my phone to find it, but shortly after the VW investigation revealed that they'd been falsifying emissions data from their diesel-engined cars for years, I saw a Jetta (?) here in LA with the plate

1 CLN DSL

The owner had x'ed out the plate with red electrical tape, which I thought was genius. I'll look for the photo.
Title: Re: License Plates
Post by: LASteve on November 18, 2022, 12:51:06 AM
Found the picture. Barham Blvd above the 101 freeway - morning rush hour when there was such a thing pre-COVID

(https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/gallery/127/6889-181122004933.png) (https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/index.php?action=gallery;sa=view&id=127739)


Title: Re: License Plates
Post by: JasonBz on November 18, 2022, 11:28:21 PM
Back in the early 90s the company I worked for had quite a few customers who had daily drive type cars that had personal number plates.
The cleverest one I can recall off hand was MOT 10N on a racing green Bentley; the strangest was JCB 7 on a transit van!

Title: Re: License Plates
Post by: Chetcombe on November 22, 2022, 08:37:44 PM
Saw this shiny red Ferrari in Bere in Devon (home of Peco) a few years ago.

My family certainly did a double take (no prizes for guessing our surname!)...

(https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/gallery/127/medium_817-221122202833.jpeg) (https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/index.php?action=gallery;sa=view;id=127896)
Title: Re: License Plates
Post by: TrevL on November 23, 2022, 07:11:23 AM
Toothpaste? :smiley-laughing:
Title: Re: License Plates
Post by: The Q on November 23, 2022, 11:25:03 AM
sings with a high voice?
Title: Re: License Plates
Post by: Michael Shillabeer on November 23, 2022, 06:16:30 PM
When the N prefix plate came out I remember publishing a picture on the back of the N Gauge Journal of a member's plate - N9 NGS
Title: Re: License Plates
Post by: woodbury22uk on November 23, 2022, 06:26:35 PM
About 35 years ago a work colleague spotted an Austin A35 in South London with his initials and a single digit. The plate was originally issued in 1936. Determined to get the plate, he offered a generous amount to buy the car and its plate which gave the seller more than enough to buy a good quality 2/3 year old car with a lot more space than the A35. Win/win. He transferred it to his BMW...........no not an Isetta. :-)
Title: Re: License Plates
Post by: PLD on November 23, 2022, 06:49:29 PM
Quote from: Michael Shillabeer on November 23, 2022, 06:16:30 PM
When the N prefix plate came out I remember publishing a picture on the back of the N Gauge Journal of a member's plate - N9 NGS
The late Hull MRS Member Stephen Pugmire had N9 MMS on his Volvo 480...
Title: Re: License Plates
Post by: Michael Shillabeer on November 24, 2022, 09:13:53 AM
Quote from: woodbury22uk on November 23, 2022, 06:26:35 PM
He transferred it to his BMW...........no not an Isetta. :-)
My Dad's Isetta was 135 ARU
He also had a Heinkel/Trojan with the number 527 HOT
Title: Re: License Plates
Post by: Dalek on November 24, 2022, 02:45:35 PM
Butchers nearish to me has M1NCE on a van and M2NCE on their car, also seen 1CUP on a VW Polo a few years ago, probably worh more than the car!

Craig