Europlate members may be interested in this Saigon temporary,dated 24-8-1975,that I have recently added to my collection. There seems no mention of this type in RPWO.
Europlate members may be interested in this Saigon temporary,dated 24-8-1975,that I have recently added to my collection. There seems no mention of this type in RPWO.
There will be a fuller account of the great period shots gathered by early founder-member Gray, when time permits. For now, just relish a few picked at random from his newly-digitalised photo transparency slides.
A Mini-Moke in London in the 1960s with the ultra-rare pre-Belize series for British Honduras. C=Corozal. AND with a BH oval, properly manufactured by the RAC. Bet they didn’t sell many of them! Gray archive.
Soon after the Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow was launched about 1968, this Bahreini emir brought his new car to London. Gray archive
WAN Nigeria – LU 7416. A batch of new Willowbrook-bodied Leyland Comet buses passed through Kettering in the late 1960s in transit to London docks and their sea-passage to Nigeria. Already plated for use with the Lagos City Transport Service, and using a green background not usually associated with WAN plates, they were running on Leicestershire AY trade plates. (NOT Alderney!) Gray Archive 1968c
Y+20006, a Vauxhall Viva estate car from the British (definite) embassy in Saigon during the 1970s. Photo’d in England in 1976, carrying an unofficial ‘oval’ of (VTN). it seems that the car could have previously been posted in Budapest with its diplomat owner. (See postscript 29 Sep.2013) Gray archive
P.S. I now learn from Ivan Thornley that the Vietnamese Vauxhall Y 20006 had not previously been registered in Hungary (H), but in Ethiopia (ETH)! The owner had not finished removing his home-made IRC stickers. (Those would have been fine plates to see on-car………)
Y+00137 Here’s another VN GB embassy plate, this time on a Land Rover in Saigon, 1970s. Brumby archive
Mowqati 673, an Afghan Foreigner (M and green) from Kabul ,on a Mercedes 190 in Britain did not escape TG’s eye or camera. A very rare sight indeed. The overseas-issued Automobile Association badge is of interest, but the country of origin crest is illegible. Gray archive c.1972
L 8829 ADEN Aden was a moderately-frequent ‘spot’ in the 1960s, due to the active commercial and military establishments in that then-British colony. Aden was administered from British India from the 1910s and employed the BI system, with code ADN. Under later colonial administration, it changed in the 1950s, first to the prefix 2ADN, when, reaching 9999 again, L, then M and N became the leading letters used in the Aden Colony. (No-one knows why those letters were chosen). Independence and the later amalgamation with South Yemen closed down sightings and info from that hot zone, for many years after. The car is a French Renault Floride, seen in GB. Gray archive.
AUSTRIA FOREIGN RESIDENT/EXPORT SERIES. Graz is the registration area for this German-built Ford Taunus 17M, photo’d in Austria in 1973 before leaving for its ultimate export destination. Most European countries offered a facility to purchasers from abroad, to collect their new European car, tax-free, from factory or dealer, to tour Europe for up to 6 months and then return it to the supplier for shipment to their country of origin – or even drive it home themselves. With their acquired mileage they could be imported to their home countries as second-hand cars, so that their local import duties would be lower. Tens, if not hundreds of thousands of vehicles were supplied under these tax-free schemes. Gray archive.
May 2014 q. Can anyone say whether this Austrian series was used both for export and for identifying foreigners who came to live in Austria for extended periods, perhaps even with tax-free status? There have always been too many of them around to be only for vehicles awaiting export, it seems……..
2015 — marcellotaverna@alice.it writes: The blue plates with a red dated band are called “temporary registration marks” and they are issued, on request, to “anyone not having his main residence, or legal seat or main facilities in Austria, upon exhibition of the required documents….”. Further “if the vehicle comes from abroad, a valid foreign approval document will be accepted” It seems that these plates are issued to foreign persons or companies, both for export or for temporary import.
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Some additions at Sept. 29th. – notes to add later
MT-6282 — Andorra’s duty-free foreigner export series valid to 1975. MT = ‘Temporary Matriculation’. Gray archive 1974
Sf 38-16 — White plates were issued to privileged Party members in pre-democratic Bulgaria. This fortunate citizen had a Sofia-registered Renault Dauphine and was allowed a passport to travel to Monte Carlo, where this picture was taken by member Terry Gray in the 1960s. The series used the Cyrillic alphabet and ran from 1958-85.
ZH 300 723 This is a puzzler. A rear Swiss plate with no canton shields? And in a poor (un-Swiss) condition. And mounted in an odd place. Was it perhaps a trade plate of the period (1960s) Any help, readers? Gray archive (silence May 2014! Help!)
Remarkably, this MGB came to live in London for about a year in 1969, and remains the first and only sighting ever of a Colombian plate in England by Europlate. Members Brumby, Thornley, Gray and Pemberton all reported it separately! This is the 1967-74 series.
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if YOU have prints or slides of early or rare plates which you would like scanned for your own use and for the pleasure of other members’ viewing, write or email to Victor Brumby (vicbrumby@gmail.com) – or make a comment in the Comments Box at the foot of this page.
YOU do? Try French West Africa…… VB archive Francoplaque’s Jean-Emmanuel is quite correct with his answer of SENEGAL, until 1960 French West Africa/Afrique Occidentale Francaise) (AOF) . The Citroen 2cv is from area 1 (Cap Vert (Dakar, capital city)) and the letter C is a serial letter, issued before independence in 1960, after which the letter ‘S’ was inserted before the area number (e.g. 0132 S 1 .C) Fascinating to think that, had the car travelled outside Senegal in those times, it would have carries the unseen(?) AOF international oval. The photo is by non-member Murray Bailey in about 1973, in Dakar. In the background, in a sad state, is a French-registered Citroen Light Fifteen Traction Avant, still carrying its French plates 505 MS 38 (from Isere).
Another long-standing Europlate member, John Grabham, took a very few photos during his long spotting life, which, sadly, ended a few weeks ago, in January 2013. He had allowed Vic Brumby to scan two of his photos, which are reproduced here:
A Land Rover seen in Wales in the 1970s. A painted Rangoon ‘ri 1838‘ translation plate had been added for travel outside Burma. (JG)
There is no evidence of another Burmese plate sighting in Britain since the 1950s. Unless YOU know otherwise……
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NG*1249 below was John’s other very rare photo, from 1970s Viet-Nam, of the series created for diplomats.
NG abbreviates the Vietnamese Ngoai Gaio, translating to “Foreign Affairs” – the international equivalent of ‘Diplomatic Corps’. Though RPWO has a full embassy code list from that time, it remains difficult to attribute the plates of which Europlate has pictures, to that list. As a (presumably) British embassy car, this Sunbeam should have 01 in the registration, but it shows either 12 or 49 for a code…….
Usually these were green on yellow – this one, oddly, is black on yellow.
1970s Sunbeam Rapier car from the an embassy in Saigon, seen in Cardiff, Wales by John Grabham during the 1970s.
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Thanks to John for seizing these two rarities.~~
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VN (cont.)
About the same time, Nip Thornley saw a similar diplomatic Ford Fiesta NG 0942 in Britain, but the code doesn’t indicate the British embassy (01)…..
Below:
This Land Rover Y*00137 was shot in Saigon by Murray Bailey at the British Embassy in Saigon, during the 1970s and is one of the few we can be sure of, attached to a specific embassy. Here, the 001 must(?) be for GB, car 37, possibly?
Y*00137 Later, unknown CD or semi-CD type, using both Y and T and five numerals with leading zeroes, circa 1976. Brumby archive, via Murray Bailey.
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Below: The first Vietnamese I ever saw, was in Cannes in 1957 and is the only one I have ever seen with a VN – and with Chinese script included in the plate. Apparently it reads ‘”Viet Nam“. The N indicates the North of the country (Hanoi) the B was the code for cars and the M was serial.
No such ideogram-embellished plates existed in Viet Nam, I am sure; this smart American Ford Fairlane had been specially plated to bring home to France by a departing French senior colonial administrator, I would suggest.
Finally, below, the unidentified category of embassy or foreigner plate represented by this single example I saw in Saigon in 2008. Can anyone help? YES!
Feb. 2013 – Alex Kafka finds the definitive answer to this QT question in his detailed comment below, dated 25/1/2013 …..QT stands for “quốc tế” (‘international’)
Who took this shot in the 1960s? It’s a 1960s-70s white on green Viet Nam foreigner plate, exceedingly rare to sight in Europe. No claimant as at Dec 4 2013!
The anonymous picture (with the bumper attached) came to the Blog via Jim Gordon in West Oz, but Jim says it was not he who took it…….
Taken by an anonymous cameraman, seemingly in London during the 1960s, we believe. On a Hillman Husky.
This anonymous shot shows the Hillman Husky bearing a home-made VN oval on the bumper. The bumper was missing on the later shot, by Vic Brumby in Notting Hill Gate a little later, below.
The owner told Vic Brumby, when questioned, that he was an ‘educational missionary’ and that his next posting was to Tchad. He gave me a picture of his car in his pre-Viet Nam posting – BK = Medan, Sumatra. This was a well-travelled Hillman!