Dentists of the world rejoice! John Shingleton over in Australia reports that he had lunch this week with an old friend who happens to be a regional manager for Leica on the West Coast of America. This is his Carrera S, LEICA2. His wife, who was not present at the table, sports LEICA1 on her Panamera. They aren’t even tooth pullers, more’s the pity for the purposes of this story.
Of course it is quite easy to dream up your own personal number in many US states. You can have anything as long as it is decent and no one else has pipped you to the post. I have friends in Washington DC who have a number even more impressive than this. Here in the UK it’s a matter of buying up some old number that happens, more or less, to fit the bill. Prices can be hefty.
Yet it isn’t always plain sailing even after you have paid the bill and screwed the plate on your car. I was once friendly with the sales manager of a large and old-established tyre company that had been in business from the dawn of motoring. As one of his perks he had the privilege of carrying A1, presumably the very first number issued, on his company car.
It was wonderful to see the disbelieving gazes of all and sundry. But such fame had a very big downside. He was constantly stopped by the police on one flimsy pretext or other. He could never drive down the road without being stopped. Heaven help him if he had actually been speeding. One office was honest, however: “I stopped you because the boys back at the Nick won’t believe I’ve seen A1. I want it in my book.”
Sometimes it pays to be anonymous.
- You can find John Shingleton at The Rolling Road, more Porsche than Leica but a very good read.
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I believe this car belongs to Eberhard K. Ebi loves his Porsches. Back in 1986 I was attending a dealer’s Leica Akademie class in Wetzlar and Ebi was then working at Leitz Wetzlar. He was driving a bright red 911 Carrera then. Made quite a splash with the attendees!
My Illinois license plate is LHSA 1 to commemorate my past presidency and editorship of our journal, and my devotion to the "cause". Its relatively easy to get a personalized plate here in the States. You pay a slightly higher fee for a "vanity plate" as they call them. Whole nother thing in GB!
Thanks, Bill. I’ll see what John Shingleton says on this. I know how easy it is to get an appropriate plate in most US states. As you say, it’s another matter here and anything really rate (and A1 comes near the top) is worth tens, if not hundreds, of thousands.
Dear Mike
In 2013 we shifted over to 131 for the first half of the year and 132 for the second half of the year, not to address the ‘problem’ you raise but under pressure from the motor trade to encourage more sales. I believe that Britain had a mid year change at one stage, perhaps it still does. The problem you raise only applies to cars from the late 1890s to 1912 but I think that even the most stupid traffic ‘cop’ would realise the difference.
As for Stephen’s point where we see this at its most stark is when we drive over the border into Northern Ireland and see miles and miles per hour on road signs and have to produce pounds to pay for fuel (well the ones near Border ‘might’ accept Euros). For us it is like going back in time.
John Boyd Dunlop spent a lot of his life in Ireland and Henry Ford’s father came from Cork. In addition the Gordon Bennett race of 1903 was held in Ireland because rules here were more lax about driving cars at speed than they were on the other side of the pond. Ireland certainly made its mark on the history of motoring.
William
Just this week my friend was stopped on the A205 South Circular Road, and spent the next 30 minutes in the back of a police vehicle, being promised that his car was going to be taken to the pound since he was not insured to drive it.
As it happens, he was insured but it took several phone calls and much research to discover the truth and the police and all their magnificent "joined up government" apparatus had failed to update the database, since April 6th… no apology though, just part of life’s rich tapestry.
There is not one single good reason, why the government should have the ability to stop people going about their lawful business, nor should they be making assumptions based on their non-functioning taxation apparatus…
… but so inured are we to their brazen neck, that we accept this sort of humiliation as part of normal life.
Of course, I don’t make this logical jump to the end of our nation, merely to the fact that my friend was stopped on the A205, or Mike’s friend was stopped because he drove the car that bore Frank Russell’s first number plate…
… no, it’s those little things that build, one by one at first and eventually they get piled on by the thousand as they emerge hot off of the press from Brussels, and we wake up, enslaved.
Frank Russell would be 151 and is probably spinning in his grave.
John Boyd Dunlop would be 176 and aghast at what has become of us.
You got it. Dunlop it was.
The late, great pianist, singer, songwriter and producer from New Orleans, Allen Toussaint, had two Rolls Royce cars, one with the plate ‘Songs’ and another with the plate ‘Piano’. If readers have not heard of Allen they will almost certainly have heard some of his work at some stage during their life either from Allen himself or from other artists.
The idea of ‘vocational’ registration plates is a splendid one, but in my country if a car is to be used on the road it must be re-registered with a number starting with the year of its birth, followed by the county in which is is registered. Thus a 1923 car registered in Dublin would have a plate starting with 23 D.
The law can be such a spoilsport sometimes!
William
Ah, I get it. So 15 D is a 1915 vehicle or 2015?
William,
I used to have great fun pretending to be one of the "knights who say ni"…
… my kids would get really annoyed when I spotted a car that sported the "ni" arrangement as we drove along the N11 in the 1980’s, and I would break into a few Pythonisms.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIV4poUZAQo
A bit juvenile I know, but that was what I used to be like, until I had it knocked out of me and Ireland went all sober with its Euro-plates and kilometres.
That was fun though, that period when some of the mileages were in KM’s and some were still in the old (don’t want that old fashioned stuff any more) imperialistic miles stuff. You didn’t know where you were. 🙂