History of Number Plates

At the turn of the 20th century, owning a motorised vehicle became increasing popular. For those who could afford them, cars became fashionable. With such an increase in motor vehicle ownership came the need for a way to individually identify vehicles.

Introduced in Great Britain in 1903, number plates changed laws and regulations on motorised vehicles. In this article we will look at the ways the number plates of Great Britain have changed over the subsequent years.

Dateless Number Plates (1903-1963)

Dateless number plates were the original design of plates. As the name suggests, these plates contained no indicator to their date of manufacture.

The initial introduction of these plates saw them use a three digit letter code which was used as an area indicator to show the location that the car was registered. These codes were then followed by a selection of three random numbers to create the full plate. This format was changed slightly in 1950 as number letter combinations started to run out. After this point, the format was switched from the ABC 123 format to the 123 ABC format.

It is no surprise to anyone that these types of plates are now in high demand. This is even more prevalent with shorter format plates.

Suffix Number Plates (1963-1983)

By this time, local councils had begun to run out of combinations to use for their number plates. This is when the Suffix system was introduced. The Suffix system introduced a letter being included at the end of the plate as an indicator of the year of registration.

Following this new system, the format of plates issued in 1963 would be AAA 123A and the format of plates issued in 1964 would be AAA 123B.

During the Suffix era of number plates, another notable change that plates took on was in their stylisation. As of 1973, newly registered number plates were required to have a reflective style. This meant the use of black letters on a white background for the front plate and a yellow background for the back plate. Before this change, this would have been white letters on a black background.

Prefix Number Plates (1983-2001)

Prefix number plates were first introduced in 1983 and saw the letter to indicate the year of registration move to the start of the plate. The new style of plate could be formatted as follows:

• First letter to represent the year of registration starting from 1983. For example if the year of registration was 1983 then the letter would be A, the letter B would be used for 1984 and so on.
• The three numbers and first three digits at the end of the plate have no meaning, the are there for the identification of the plate/car.
• The last two letters are used as an area code to show where the car was registered.

This system stayed in effect until August 2001.

Current Style Number Plates (2001-Present)

The current style of number plate was introduced in 2001. The new formatting was introduced following evidence presented by the police that eyewitnesses found it easier to remember the letters of the registration plates rather than the numbers.

As a result, the formatting was changed to the following AB12 ABC. This can be broken up into three sections. The “AB” which is used as an area code to identify where the car was registered. The “12” is an identifier for when the car was registered. This code starts at 51 and changes every 6 months. The last three letters of the plate are completely random and allow the new system to run much longer than previous systems.

The First Number Plates

Globally, the first country to introduce a registration system for motorised vehicles was France in 1893. They were closely followed by the Germans who introduced their registration system in 1896. The system of using registration plates on vehicles was quick to catch on through the rest of the world.