DVLA and Change of Body Style

[Jamie]

I noticed a thread on Facebook recently where someone was asking about registering a change of body style with DVLA . Has anyone done this recently for a car for which they have a valid V5c showing a different type of changing saloon to tourer?

Regards,

Jamie

[Robert Leigh]

It is a while since I did it (late 2002), but my short chassis Ulsteroid was built on a shortened late Ruby chassis for which I had a V5. I went to the Registration office at Peterborough and asked them to change the saloon designation to Tourer, which they obligingly did, and there has been no question since. These days it may hang on which particular 'pen pusher' deals with your application to cahnge anything. Good luck!

[Cliff Ringrose]

Has the body been changed recently, or was it changed a long time ago, but nobody bothered to register the change with DVLA, (I suspect this happened pretty often).
When I aquired my Maroon open topped special in 2010 it was still listed on the V5 as a Black Saloon. If I had known then how fussy DVLA would become I would have changed the details then. I kept it on SORN for several years then insured it and removed it from SORN. I then returned the V5 to DVLA on the grounds that the details on the form that they had supplied did not match the car I had bought. I then recieved a form to fill in wanting to know when the body was changed, who had made the body, etc. etc.. I sent a lengthy reply, including pictures of the car taken by the previous owner in 1995, and an old MOT describing the colour as Maroon, and pointing out that I had no way of knowing when the changes were made, but they had been made long before the incorrect V5 was issued to me. Not a word for a couple of months then a new all correct V5 arrived in the post.
Of course none of this will be any help if you have just changed the body.

[Jamie]

Thank you, Robert and Cliff.

I have a Ruby, but the shell is a wreck. The logbook says saloon. I want to change it to a tourer. I do plan to go through the club to which I belong.

Jamie.

[Steve Jones]

I'm hearing some very disturbing reports about the DVLA's recent reaction to changes of body and body styles. Possibly a policy change? Be very careful what you do. Poking a sleeping lion up the backside can often end badly.

Steve

[Stuart Giles]

Local registration offices have all closed down now AFAIK.

This is what the DVLA say should happen as regards a rebody, called a kit conversion in DVLA speak...

https://www.gov.uk/vehicle-registration/...d-vehicles

[Mike Costigan]

Local registration offices have all closed down now AFAIK.

This is what the DVLA say should happen as regards a rebody, called a kit conversion in DVLA speak...

https://www.gov.uk/vehicle-registration/...d-vehicles

Why not use the Reconstructed Classic regs?

https://www.gov.uk/vehicle-registration/...c-vehicles

[Steve Jones]

Local registration offices have all closed down now AFAIK.

This is what the DVLA say should happen as regards a rebody, called a kit conversion in DVLA speak...

https://www.gov.uk/vehicle-registration/...d-vehicles

Why not use the Reconstructed Classic regs?

https://www.gov.uk/vehicle-registration/...c-vehicles

See my post two above, Mike. As you might know, I look after DVLA applications for the VSCC. We all know what the DVLA's rules and regulations say but these last few weeks I've had some very disturbing reports about their recent reaction to replacement/changes of body and body styles. Hopefully just a hiccup but we've been here before and it didn't go well in the short term.  My advice at the moment is to wait and see how it pans out. The DVLA won't talk to individual clubs about policy, they'll only talk to the FBHVC as our 'umbrella' organisation so anybody with an issue needs to talk to them.

Steve

[David Cochrane]

Your V5C describes your open car as a saloon. Does this bother you or the car?
Let sleeping dogs (or Steve's lion) lie.
Go and fettle or drive it instead!

David

[Jamie]

Thank you for the replies.

I have only just started on the chassis, so I am a way off from doing the shell and have time enough to see how things do develop with DVLA.

It only bothers me, not the car, but the day will come when the car will need to be sold and having the physical and written descriptions of the body type matching would, I imagine, make things easier. Similarly, I have no wish for some bored and overly diligent policeman to notice via ANPR and to start asking questions.

Regards,

Jamie.