408 replies to this topic

[Gary C]

ANOTHER thought brought to mind by watching the Goodwood Revival video : does anyone have any famous registration numbers?? This was brought on by watching the Classic Sportscars race, seeing cars like the John Coombs Mk 2 Jag 'BUY1', the Low-drag E-type 'CUT7', Nick Mason's Ferrari GTO '250GTO' and the Lotus Elite 'DAD10'. Any more anyone??

[Mark A]

33 EJB the Mini Cooper S of Paddy Hopkirk when he won the Monte in 1964.

[bill moffat]

FSH 360 ....attached to a pale blue Aston Martin DBR1 (Chassis DBR1/3). As a lad growing up in 1960's South Wales motor racing meant the bumpy 1 mile oval at Llandow near Cardiff.

Charles Sgonina raced this Aston at Llandow in the mid 1960's. A graceful old lady competing against a motley bunch of GTs. The fascination for me was that this car was a link with my then (and now) hero Jimmy Clark. Under the Border Reivers banner Jimmy had raced this car at Le Mans in '60 (3rd) and '61 (retired).

FSH 360 had previously raced at La Sarthe with Moss in '59 before, of course, acting as an arsonist at Goodwood later in the year. The car has now taken up French residence I believe.

Incidentally, such an important car racing in a clubbie some 4 years after its heyday. Can't imagine we'll see an Audi R8 at Lydden in 2005 somehow !

[bill moffat]

and the VEV Astons of course.

[ensign14]

OKW3.

Ian Appleyard's NUB 120.

IIRC, in the early 80s Motor Sport ran a series of famous number plates on cars.

There were number plates on cars 'au Mans' until about 1971 - didn't the Healey have one?

[D-Type]

PAT 7 - Pat Moss's blue Saab 96

OKV 1, OKV 2 and OKV 3 - the works D-Type Jaguars

62 EMU, 63 EMU and 9046 H - works Aston Martin DB3S's

Edited by D-Type, 18 August 2009 - 16:57.

[917]

If we don't count AX 201 (Silver Ghost) I suggest WN-V 1 and WN-V 2 (the Porsches of Paul-Ernst Strähle).

[Ron Scoma]

"JOY 500" Cooper-MG

"XK SS" on a friends XJ 6 in Illinois
"XK SS" on a friends car in Wisconsin
"356A" on the 356A Porsche owned by the incorrigible Ron Scoma
Cheers,

Ron Scoma

[Geoff E]

I remember many years ago seeing Minis 848CC and ADO15 racing at Cadwell.

[Pils1989]

I know a belgian Lotus Elise "Type 25" Limited Edition with number plate "TYP. 025"

[bill moffat]

..and returning to Le Mans various Jaguar D type plates including the OKV s 1,2 and 3 and the later 774/032/210 RW s...although these latter numbers were officially "trade" plates.

[BorsariG]

How bout mine, no numbers, but kinda nostalgically interesting.

BORSARI


That has been my plate here in California since about 1975 or so, and has been on my last 4 cars, toyota wagon, Scirocco, Mazda mx5, and now my stately grannie car, a Taurus Wagon (estate)

Borsari is for Giulio Borsari, Ferrari F/1 Meccanico from the years 1961-1978


Vals

[Frank S]

This has been on one or another of my cars since 1972:




I regard it as famous because:

For a few years it was on my/my sister's 1966 Lotus Elan S2. A friend was at a
professional conference upstate. He said he was enjoying a cocktail hour when
he mentioned he was from San Diego.

An eavesdropping woman detached herself from a neighboring group to say,
"San Diego? I've been in San Diego. They do things a little different down there.
I was driving along the freeway when I was passed by a little green car with
a license plate that read, 'F**CK YOU'!"

One of many amusing reactions . . .

My wife's car carries "BRONCA".

Sister's says "AH NUIT".


Frank S

[Falcadore]

"ROJ"

Possum Bourne's simple three letter dedication to his long standing co-pilot Dr. Rodger Freeth who was killed in an accident at Rally Oz in 1993.

[Ray Bell]

The Aston Martin that ran a high place in the 1935 (or so...) Le Mans eventually had the same numberplate in New South Wales (when owned by Alan Puckett) as it had in England in the thirties... CML 720, I think.

Norm Beechey made a name for himself racing an early Holden with the plate (Vic) PK 752. Then he obtained, somehow (they were out of date plates still in use) PK 751 for his next car, the S4 Holden.

Les Leston had a famous one, DAD 10 ... surprised it hasn't been mentioned earlier. It was on his Elite, was it not?

[Gary C]

DAD10 is in my very first post, Ray!!

[Ray Bell]

Hmmm... and I thought I read so carefully...

[David T.]

LOV 1 was the registration number of another famous British car, wasn't it?

[Ron Scoma]

PMO 200 on a few A-H Sebring Sprites...

Ron Scoma

[Tweddell]

remember all the XOO...... registrations for famous Escorts, the most famous Gardner Alan Mann XOO 346 still alive, but also Broadspeed had XOO ´s

[TODave2]

Jimmy Tarbuck has COM1C

[Doug Nye]

Doesn't the Trade Descriptions Act apply there somewhere...?

[2F-001]

I was going to suggest the much-photographed Alan Mann Escort too, Tweddell, but I couldn't remember the figures that followed 'XOO'... I think 'OO' must have been the reg. letters for Dagenham or Boreham or some other works-related place, so quite a few factory or 'factory-approved' racers had reg's like XOO. I remember seeing some of the works RS1800 rally cars with the reg letters 'OOO' which looked very distinctive.

On another tack... KAR 120C was Patrick McGoohan's Lotus 7 in ''The Prisoner''. (Subsequently appeared on a few Caterham demonstrators.) Lotus 7 alert! Cue Eric...

[GeoffR]

Originally posted by Ray Bell:

Then he obtained, somehow (they were out of date plates still in use) PK 751 for his next car, the S4 Holden.

I remember seeing this car, still in it's racing colours & with the 'PK 751' number plates, as a road car in Mildura in the late sixties / early seventies(?).
From what I recall the engine was not the same spec. as it raced with though.

[dbw]

SJH 499D.....emma peel's lotus elan!...tho i don't remember the car much , i do recall the jumpsuits...

[Frank S]

Originally posted by dbw
SJH 499D.....emma peel's lotus elan!...tho i don't remember the car much , i do recall the jumpsuits...

Here 'tis.

[dbw]

ahhhh.....

you da man!

[uh...nice car too..]

[jazzzz]

The best I've seen so far was

NOPASS

on a BMW M3

[Ruairidh]

I believe there is a New Hampshire car running around with "I8NASCR" - which, if worn on a Texas car might just get you shot!

[swintex]

Not quite a registration number, but I do recall Nick Whiting had "Don't Push" where the rear number plate should have been on a very wild Morris Minor…much hilarity when he backed it into the barriers at Paddock one day.

What about Mikkola's London to Mexico Escort FEV1H.

[Frank S]

[Peter Morley]

I recall someone saying that either (both?) DAD 10 or LOV 1 were not genuine registrations.
Or maybe it was some of the others (BUY 1 for example).

I never understood the high value of UK registrations, why pay 1,000s of pounds for a number when the maximum fine for displaying the wrong number is 150 quid.
Much cheaper to put what you want on a plate and keep paying the fine!!
But then we wouldn't have got so much money for MG12..............

Famous UK nos. I can think of:

BFG 1 our old Riley Sprite, won its class on the 1937 (?) RAC rally, unfortunately split from the car when the number's value matched the cars!.

KOY 500 our Cooper MG (Lionel Leonard had - JOY 500, KOY 500, LOY 500, MOY 500 and others - clearly he had a fan in the local licensing office)

130 LOX (1 & 3 close together) has been in Nottingham for many years.

FU2 is apparently owned by an MP (possibly old enough to be a Lord or similar by now).

F1 is of course up for sale at the moment (estimate 150,000 pounds - Bernie), of course if you buy it, Bernie will claim that he has the rights to the 'word' F1 and will try to prevent you from using it!!

[Ron Scoma]

My Maserati Ghibli, which is registered in the UK, insured and kept in France, has Illinois registration plate "GHIBLI."

Ron, who likes paying legal fees it seems...

[FrankB]

Originally posted by Peter Morley
FU2 is apparently owned by an MP (possibly old enough to be a Lord or similar by now).

I think FU2 was on Fiona Richmond's car back in the seventies - she was a well known actress (for want of a better term) at the time.

I remember seeing a Porsche 928S several times near Coventry that was registered THE 928 S

[petefenelon]

Mike Hawthorn's Mk 1 Jag VDU 881

Moss had some interesting registrations - EBP 777 vaguely rings a bell?

[EcosseF1]

Originally posted by FrankB


I remember seeing a Porsche 928S several times near Coventry that was registered THE 928 S

I remember this plate in magazines at the time. must have been the factory road test car.

UUL 442 is the ex Billy Cotton/Ian Scott-Watson/Jim Clark Porsche 356.

[Ian McKean]

JCT 600 on Jack Tordoff's various rally cars.

120 MNP on Barrie Whizzo Williams' Welsh International winning Cooper 'S'

Wasn't LOV 1 (mentioned in an earlier post) on Graham Warner's Chequered Flag Garage Elite?

Nothing to do with racing, but Gerald Nabarro (MP) had NAB 1 thru' to NAB 7, IIRC

[vroomgt]

Lamborghini Miura on the back page of a sventies "Road and Track" IXLR8!

[WDH74]

For a long time, Chrysler's only UK based Viper demonstrator was registered HOT ONE. The "H" was two ones close together with a black painted rivet for the crossbar. I remember a rather irate letter in Performance Car Magazine from the previous owner of that registration number, complaining that it was the original number for his Minor Traveller or some similar old car, and how could a historic Oxford number (or wherever) be used for cheap publicity.

KAR 120C, was of course, Graham Nearn's registration number for various Lotus Seven demonstrators at his Caterham Cars dealership.

MBL 546E was the first lightweight MGC GT.

Those are the only two I know!

-William

[vroomgt]

Porsche GB press cars:

911HUL

[David Birchall]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Peter Morley
[B]I ).

I never understood the high value of UK registrations, why pay 1,000s of pounds for a number when the maximum fine for displaying the wrong number is 150 quid.


How about Coombes MkII Jag "Buy 12", it actually means "Buy one too" or so I was told when working as a petrol pump attendant (Gas jockey) in the early sixties just down the road from Coombes garage.

"VMF 64" was probably the winningest Aston Martin number ever.

"Fly 1" was Lord Brabazon's number.

"RPA 215" was the number of my Lambretta 150 when I was "On the beaches" in 1964 with the other Mods. I had RPA 215 on the front and 215 RPA on the back, I was very insulted when a cop pulled me over to "explain" that I didn't own the number in both ways!

[swintex]

My father used to have a Fiat 500 rather optimistically registered as "501MPH"

[petefenelon]

Originally posted by swintex
My father used to have a Fiat 500 rather optimistically registered as "501MPH"

decimal point missing in there?;)

[Vicuna]

Have we had:

JAG 400
59305 MO
HCH 736 or
5 BHP yet?

[Alan Lewis]

When I was a student at Leicester Polytechnic in the mid-eighties, the Mayor of Leicester used to drive round in a limo marked "ABC 123" ("BC" being the regional code for Leicester).

APL

[Mike Jerram]

<>

Slightly off-thread, but Bernie Ecclestone has 'FU' suffixes on several of his U.S.-registered business jets, viz Learjet 31 N2FU. Plenty of other examples of 'personalised' aircraft registrations among the motor racing fraternity, but one that was purely serendipitous was the late John Cooper's Piper Tri-Pacer G-ARAG(E)!

[Macca]

Dunlop used to have 'A1', I saw it on a Granada estate on the way back from Le Mans in 1982. I gather they nearly lost it when someone forgot to renew the road tax one year.

PWM

[Criceto]

Always enjoy this topic when it comes up.

A few more racing notables I don't think have been mentioned yet:

BML9A - Jack Sears' Ford Galaxie 500 saloon racer
VPP9 and MVE303 from Brian Lister's Stable
DUV870 Rob Walker's delicious Delahaye 135

I've checked with the DVLA and apparently DAD10 is indeed officially a red 1960 Lotus Elite. Whether it's Les Leston's old car is quite another matter. Certainly Les always maintained he hadn't ever registered his.

Some of my favourites seen on the roads of Great Britain

MAG 1C, being driven with great gusto through a torrential rainstorm on the M1, was a red Ferrari 308GTB piloted by one Paul Daniels.

H155 OFF, bright yellow Autokraft AC Mk4 Cobra.

TOO 510W on a silver Porsche 928S

CAT 1 on a red Jaguar XK8 Coupe

On occasion one sees American cars being driven round, even in the UK, and I've spotted New York plate "EX-POOR" on a brown early Rolls Royce Silver Shadow, and California "RED VIN" on a burgundy coloured split-screen VW Microbus. And one of the worst bits of driving I ever encountered was the brown '87 Chrysler LeBaron which weaved from lane to lane wreaking havoc on the M4 outside Swindon one day. It's New York plate read "VEGANCAR".

Words nearly failed me. Polite words, anyway.

[Ian McKean]

A year or so ago I saw a Bentley whose registration started "WO.."

Can't remember how it finished, but thought at the time that there's not many people who would understand the signficance!

[Frank S]

I was driving near a golf course south of San Diego when passed by an upper-echelon Porsche convertible with license plate:

DOVER PRO

(only meaningful to original-version M*A*S*H fans)


Passed by a Capri with license plate:

LBGP1

I have a photo, but it has strayed.


My best on-the-road photo is of a man flossing as he steered with his elbows and drove his German car with license plate:

AUDI DDS

Also strayed.


Passed by a 250GT SWB light metallic blue, in 1971 Los Angeles traffic. License plate:

GAYNOR

Driver: Mitzi.


Passed by a Mair Say Dees 450SL, ten miles north of the Mexican border, 20 miles above the speed limit. License plate:

S NICKS

Driver: Stevie


A friend had a serious accident in a Chevrolet, undisclosed defect. On his new 1976 Porsche:
GM PAID


Making that trip to deeper Mexico, it was necessary to do a temporary import of my Chevy van, a procedure that involved long, slow queues and three-stage mordida. Finally at the station of the mero mero, he perused my documents and tapped the registration card with a decal to be installed (mordida #3) by his nephew: "What is that? SOLO TÚ? That is not a license plate; that is a song!" It was also my play on the SCCA low-speed autocross program, Solo 2.


Famous is as famous does.