Age related plate?

[Biddlecombe]

Am I right? Can this possibly be an age related plated. I think not. What's Wayne up to?
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Austin-7-ruby...SwcoNckpbc

[Mike Costigan]

That plate probably dates back about thirty years, or even more, when DVLA or whatever they were called then didn't issue age-related plates.The A-suffix numbers were the earliest theysaw fit to issue. Go even further back, and they issued current plates, so Peter Relph's Dixi was issued with, I think, a K-suffix plate!

[Biddlecombe]

I used to drive GCG122D a 1966 police vehicle. so I think A plate is 1963 so 56 years ago!

[Martin Prior]

Nearer 40 years, I think, Mike.  I can remember "A-suffix" plates appearing on older cars around 1980, or perhaps a little earlier.  For some reason, A30s seem to have been particularly badly afflicted!

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The A suffix was indeed 1963, but for some reason only a very few authorities issued them, so there were plenty available when DVLC, as it was then, started issuing them as "age related" registrations years later.  Suffices became universal with "B" in '64.

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To be fair to Wayne, he does mention the age-related plate and says that he hates them!

[Hedd_Jones]

My brother had a late Ruby with a B suffix plate. He was a copper so checked it was all above board on the PNC. And it was.

[Reckless Rat]

A PREFIX plates appeared in 1980. The A SUFFIX plates date to 1963.

[Ivor Hawkins]

I had a 1939 Francis Barnett that had its original number robbed and it was issued with an A plate, it was such a shame as the bike had an interesting history with the war office and people searching for the bike on the original number may thing the bike no longer exists

[Mike Costigan]

Yes, the A-suffix dates from 1963, but I think it was probably in the late 1980s when they started to be used on older vehicles which didn't retain their original number, before true age-related numbers started to be isuued.

[Steve kay]

Looking at that ad takes us past the Boat-tail Special, cor got to be worth a few bob with its "very rare 19" wheels!"

[Duncan Grimmond]

Another special from the House of Waterskis ? No mention of a V5... That Monza cap looks ready to fall off... oops it did