Back in the 1980’s the very first cars started to hit the British roads but weren’t required to have number plates attached to them as the car registration system hadn’t even been invented until some 13 years later. With the adoption of powered transportation becoming more and more popular, a method was needed to identify individual road users.
Dateless Plates were issued from 1903 hence why they increase in value the older they get.
The easiest way to identify a dateless number plate is that it either starts or ends with a number for example:
1 EW
BIG 43
9 YG
74 SO
1 OKK
From 1963 the Suffix style plates were introduced - They always start with 3 letters (2nd 2 letters are the area code), space then a minimum of 1 number (upto 3) and always ending with a letter.
Then from 1983 Pre-fix style was introduced which is the reverse of suffix style - Always starts with a letter, followed by a minimum of 1 number (upto 3), space and ends with 3 letters, (last 2 being the area code).
Then in 1999 the release of number plates twice a year was introduced, this was to even out the sales pattern in the motor industry, as prior to this, new registrations were only released once a year, which led to a huge demand for new cars on August 1st, the day the new plates were released.
In 2001, authorities decided to reformat the plates shifting the area code to the beginning, followed by a date identifier (Starting at 01 in March 2001 and 51 starting in September 2001, then each subsequent year the number increases by one) This is called Current style.
Dateless, suffix and pre-fix style number plates still get released today through the DVLA auctions.
Certain letters like I, Q, and Z were excluded from the serial letter series. The use of I and Z was confined to Ireland, while Q was reserved for temporary imports. Moreover, single-letter codes were omitted to avoid duplication of existing two-letter codes. Although this scheme was later adopted by the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, the latter still uses it.
For a more in-depth explanation of the different style plates, click here
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