I have a dreadful habit of reading the number plate of most vehicles
that pass me,particularly on the motorway. Over the years I have
seen a few cars with personalised plates,that belong to well known
people. I saw snooker player John Virgo in a car on the M5 between
Cullompton and Exeter, V1RGO. Another snooker player I saw on the
M8 near Easterhouse was John Higgins, then a week later, I saw him
on the A907 near Alloa, His number CUE 2. Jim Bowen from “Bullseye”
and “The Comedians”, was seen a couple of times on the M6 near
Lancaster in his Mercedes Benz Reg No. J80WEN.
Nearest I ever got to that sort of thing was RON 614 M, on my old 3.0 Scorpio…affectionly known as Big Ron. I paid just over a grand for the car…I sold it for £900. Plus £1100 for the number plate…a local cabbie by the name of Ron Masters (Masterson?) something like that.
Ray Smyth:
I have a dreadful habit of reading the number plate of most vehicles
that pass me,particularly on the motorway. Over the years I have
seen a few cars with personalised plates,that belong to well known
people. I saw snooker player John Virgo in a car on the M5 between
Cullompton and Exeter, V1RGO. Another snooker player I saw on the
M8 near Easterhouse was John Higgins, then a week later, I saw him
on the A907 near Alloa, His number CUE 2. Jim Bowen from “Bullseye”
and “The Comedians”, was seen a couple of times on the M6 near
Lancaster in his Mercedes Benz Reg No. J80WEN.
“Dip your bread in” Regards, Ray Smyth.
When I were on the road,70s I read every no. plate n every road sign n every co. logo. Nowt better to do, my mum used to say, to the point where put on a quiz show called" name that co. by colour" I could name it in 1. Sad or good? who knows! paul
All our trucks have personalized number plates, MC truck and bus had the job of dealing with that one with the DVLA. We bought ten or twelve new trucks every year from about 1992, finance was cheap and it made sense, MC truck and bus had the job of securing the numbers from the DVLA all had GEL with single, double or triple numbers all the same then the DVLA got greedy so we just transfer them now from old to new and some have been on three or four trucks that we have run.
I used to own 111JD but got offered K6 for it and it went, now I have GEL555 but that is on a retention certificate and is up for sale. Best one I saw was when I was a youth and a fella used to come to a pub we frequented in a black Austin Healy 3000 and its number was AH3000 plus one more who came to watch cricket in the village which was TEL999.
My interest in numbers goes back to when as a child on a long journey in my dads car we did number spotting and wrote down what we saw and we had an AA handbook which told you where the car was registered by its prefix, silly really but it passed the time of day, Cheers Buzzer.
Hello Buzzer, My childhood interest in number plates was just like yours.
In the early fifties,my Dad had a 1936 BSA motor cycle,Reg No. BLV 71.
In the mid fifties, he bought a 1937 Ford Y Model,Reg No. CLV 415.
You can find my Dad on Trucknet in “Greenbanks Dairies,Liverpool,1930s”.
I also had an AA Handbook,so you got to know very quickly where vehicles
were first registered. My first car,a 1947 Austin 8 was HXR 350,a London
number. I was born and bred in Liverpool,and in the late 1950s, a strange
looking double decker bus appeared on our bus route,an AEC Reg No. 116 TMD.
We soon learned that it was a Middlesex Reg No, and that it was one of two
AEC Demonstrators. It is still around today in preservation. In my early days
of driving for Robert Baillie of Portsmouth,most of their Atkinsons had
Reg Numbers with just 2 numbers, e.g. FPO 13C, LNJ 80E, NAP 30F.
When we went on a weekend away to London I saw a gleaming red rolls Royce with the number plate 1R outside Claridges,bet that cost a few bob probably more than the car did.
Richard J:
Nearest I ever got to that sort of thing was RON 614 M, on my old 3.0 Scorpio…affectionly known as Big Ron. I paid just over a grand for the car…I sold it for £900. Plus £1100 for the number plate…a local cabbie by the name of Ron Masters (Masterson?) something like that.
Foden BAY 698 Bayboy, Reiver WUT 526 J Wutman, Foden VRA 39 K Vera, GAY 823 L ■■?!!!
We once had a Scania 143 with the reg number K9 UP U spaced like that but the driver got stopped by the fuzz on the M62 one day and said he liked our sense of humour but get it changed which we had to do. Also my son has LITUP on his Range Rover which we had on a Ford Fiesta from new, Buzzer.
One time, back in the 70s, on the M5 close to the exit for Worcester, I was overtaken by a Rolls Royce bearing the registration NAB 1, one of Gerald Nabarro’s motors. Fortunately, he must have laid off the sauce on that particular afternoon as he was driving in the correct direction, on the correct side of the road, which must have been something of a novelty for that ■■■■■■■ knobhead.
Eddie Heaton:
One time, back in the 70s, on the M5 close to the exit for Worcester, I was overtaken by a Rolls Royce bearing the registration NAB 1, one of Gerald Nabarro’s motors. Fortunately, he must have laid off the sauce on that particular afternoon as he was driving in the correct direction, on the correct side of the road, which must have been something of a novelty for that [zb] knobhead.
I remember reading that at one point in the 70s he had the largest collection of private number plates, something like NAB 1 through to NAB 12
You’re probably right there spud, I remember reading something similar myself, although I seem to recall that quite a number of his plates were attached to Honda 50s and other such similar stuff.
.Les.