Is My Plate Private?

Hyper

Hyper

Hyper

Soldato
Joined
2 Jul 2005
Posts
3,549
Location
Newcastle
Hi All,

Just a quick one really as I cant find an answer anywhere,

I have recently bought a Clio 2001 Expression from my brother who didnt own it from new.

Now its a 2001 model with the phase 2 lights and Y reg,

Now quite a few people have commented on my plate being private since its only YXX XXX so therefore missing a digit,

I am yet to see another Y reg with this format, is there any reason for this?

A strange one I know :p

Thanks, Sam
 
Your plate is not a private plate and is not missing a digit. Conventionally issued registration marks start from 2 figure numbers and work upwards. There are numerous examples of non personalised registrations in the LNN LLL format.
 
Pleased someone has finally cleared that up,

I didnt think it was private but thought I would make sure :)
 
Your plate:

Y (digit) (digit) (letter) (letter) (letter)?

If so, it's just the standard Y reg, just short of changing over to the new number plate system.
 
IIRC two digit numbers 20 or less were reserved for private plates (since the new A regs came in in the 80s), but the rest are normal plates.

So Y20XXX is a private plate, but Y21XXX isn't.
Similarly the old style Y plates are not private whatever the number, so XXX20Y would not have been private when launched.
 
Technically there's no such thing as a 'private' plate. Plates which the DVLA have chosen to hold back for direct sale have no special status. For example V18TBX would be available to buy and some people would call this a 'private' plate however it's no more special than V180TBX would be and most people wouldn't even look twice at it.

For prefix plates the numbers the following numbers were held back:
A-H Plates: 1-20
J-R Plates: 1-20 plus n0, nn, n00, nnn
S-Y Plates: 1-31 plus n0, nn, n00, nnn, 121, 123, 321

Additionally K155 and M155 plates were held back for sale. Also numerous specific plates will have been held back for sale at auction (These tend to be the 'best' plates which spell words, refer to common names or popular cars without the need for misrepresentation) and many other plates will be held indefinately due to their potential to cause offence (P one five five plates would fall into this category)
 
jamief said:
I've had 5 cars from the old system and they were all LNN LLL, is it definitely "less common"?
Click to expand...

There are only 90 2-digit numbers, as opposed to 900 3-digit numbers, therefore 2-digit numbers are less common.
 
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[TW]Fox;15147981 said:
Did you really just ask that? Of course its less common, there are only 99 double digit number combinations per 3 letter combination!
Click to expand...

90
 
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Burnsy2023 said:
Are the 1s used? I got a feeling they weren't.
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Yes, they are. There are numerous S1ABC cars out there - they were hold back and resold seperate as private plates, sure, but surelly there are 99 combinations of 2 digit numbers per 3 letter combination?

1-99?

Which numbers were never issued?
 
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