RP Restoration - New Member

[Hedd Jones]

The best thing I find to allow you to belt a piston up it down is another piston, ideally a scrap one minus rings dropped in upside down (crown to crown). You can then be quite brutal.

[Geoff101]

After weeks of waiting, the DVLA have just informed me that they will not process an application until the car is restored and they will give me no guarantee at this point that they will preserve the car's identity when it's done.
So I'm being asked to risk thousands of pounds with no guarantee. Thanks for that.
It's not like this is a first application from an old log book; it's already on record with them.

I'm pretty annoyed.

[Hedd_Jones]

Geoff

If you have an old RF60 log book with a chassis number in it, and the number matches that of your chassis you are almost guaranteed the number. Particularly if all the other info checks out.

The rules have always stated that the car has to be in one piece (or from memory roadworthy) for you to be able to claim the number back.

I shouldn't worry.

[fatcatvera]

I can appreciate how frustrating that must be for you...

I'm currently waiting on a registration to be processed for my Ruby. I have a complete, fully functional and roadworthy car with what I think is all the necessary support documentation - inc support from the PWA7 club - but it doesn't stop me being nervous that the DVLA might not be happy in some way, or I end up with a post 1963 registration.

Ray

[Geoff101]

We don't have an RF60 because it would have been sent in when it was swapped for a modern V5 in the 80s. Sadly that has been lost in the years since.
There was an issue with the number I put on the V62 but I didn't know whether they had the car, body or chassis number on record.
They wouldn't tell me which it was until it's in my name so I had to try to get hints out of them which led me to believe it was the car number. Obviously I guessed wrong, so they referred it to the special vehicle section and here we are.

[EB65 VN]

The DVLA notified me that they were unwilling to process my registration of my vehicle due to an undefined "discrepancy" in records. During previous, brief ownership the identity of the vehicle had not been questioned, and the original number retained. Regrettably, I guessed that a change of engine many years previously had been the cause of the problem, but it now seems that at some time an entirely fictitious VIN number had been listed at the time of an MOT...perhaps because previous documentation had been lost, and nobody knew where to locate the chassis number. My photographs of the chassis number and body number were accepted, but my Austin is now noted as "being built up from...etc." Much does seem to depend upon the caprice of DVLA staff who may lack a complete understanding of their own regulations and their application.

[Geoff101]

The difficulty is that despite me proving I legally own the vehicle, they won't tell you what's wrong unless you're the registered keeper. Catch 22.

I understand the roadworthy requirement for a new application to recover an RF60 number but this one is already on record.
Would the same happen for a keeper change in a 10 year old focus that was SORN??

[daveg]

The DVLA should be looking at the chassis number but it is possible a mistake was made when the V5 was issued and for example the engine number was used - many A7s have the wrong engine cc on the V5 because it was assumed they were Austin Seven minis. I have just looked at the two V5s for my cars - one has just the 6 digit chassis number, the other has AEB (code for a Nippy) followed by the chassis number, this is how they were recorded on the original registration documents and copied to the V5s. Is it possible this is the problem in your case?

[Geoff101]

Ah - that might explain things.

So would it be 'RP' (body number type) followed by the chassis number or 'B9' (the car number prefix) followed by the chassis number?

Could anyone with an RP saloon (or similar) advise what theirs lists?

Thanks for the info. That could be very helpful.

[Mike Costigan]

It is most unlikely the RP number would be quoted; this is now an accepted identity that was completely unheard of fifty years ago. It is very common that the original registration was identified by the Car Number (B9 in your case) - we now expect to identify a car by its chassis number, but the Car Number identity is what was used by the Factory and is the nearest to the present day VIN number.