PAG party!

I keep seeing Deltas with PAG number plates!

First is my blue Evo2. This was bought from Motorhub in Keighley.

The car is from Japan, with Euro spec headlights, all the rest is Japanese.

Including square no plates, alloy underbumper, massive box speakers on the rear shelf, etc.

all now removed.

A new window motor, and belts done has made this a good reliable Delta.

The second car is from a posting on the Evocorner, I hope the owner is patient with this reproduction.

The thread was about number plate positions, the photo is in Ouistreham, this red car has a yellow Evo next to it with a well wonky plate,

it doesn't even say PAG!

Here's a lovely Lord blue Evo2 that's for sale in Warwickshire.

It's advertised with the reg number showing, so I won't hide the numbers.

And another PAG! This great looking Evo2 is for sale on ebay

A brief history of number plates...

When registering motor cars began in 1903, every council licensing dept. was eventually given index code letters. The number plates read AB 12, the AB being the local authority code, the numbers being the number of the car.

Bigger towns like London got more codes, smaller areas got less, Manchester cc got N, NA to NF, and Warwick cc got AB for instance.

The code was set on the number plate followed by a number, when they ran out of numbers at 9999 they put the number in front of the local code. When that ran out, they put a 3rd random letter in front of the 2 letter local code and used 3 numbers. When that number reached 999, they put the numbers first, before the letters. That too of course, ran out, so a year letter was added at the end, ie, AAB 999 A. This system started in 1963, so in 20 years, when the year alphabet ran out, they put the year letter in front, so it became A 999 AAB. This started in 1983.

The letters ran out in 20 years because they didn't use Q, I, Z or O, and maybe some others, which might be confused for numbers, or a Belfast reg.

So when we come to our Delta's time, the prefix was L or M ish, L being used in 1993.

So- pay attention! The reg on M 580 PAG means, M reg date 1994, 580 car number, P random letter, AG is Ayr county council.

You may see rebuilt old cars with a reg plate similar to 123 ASU, this is a newly issued age related plate, so it's a previously un-issued reg number. Any reg with S starting the area code is from Scotland, less vehicles were registered up there, so they have spare numbers to issue today. There were areas of Scotland which didn't include S, but no English areas did use S.

Northern Ireland was always Z or I in the area code.

Therefore, a Japanese Delta. imported here and looking for a UK reg no, will get a previously un-issued number from a Scottish cc. AG being Ayr cc. That explains why there are so many PAGs.

This lovely system that we learned as schoolboys has now gone, replaced with a new computer driven thing, like that Twitface and Flutter or whatever they are.