400 Wheel Spindles

[Trigger]

The mudguards were just parts to Honda. Though in the UK we scraped front plates in 1973 they would of fitted them as it was on the assembly line. I have seen UK CB750K2 with front plates right up to 1975 

Spot on Trig, time to unearth a tear jerking memory!! Purchased in late '74, front plates removed and screwed to garage wall late '75. Bike was sold in '77 complete with number plate as the collection fad had not really taken off then. Ho hum. (Plate is now worn by a 500 Mercedes!)

Nice old picture 
They kept the front plates even after changing the front mudguard from the 300 to the 341 in early 1974. 

[McCabe-Thiele (Ted)]

They changed the regulations on transfering plates from bikes to cars. Pretty sure they stopped it.
Local firm JCB bought a load of new mopeds so that all the  company cars were JCB 1, JCB 2, etc I believe it was originally a Welsh local authority - this was before DVLA replaced local authority licensing circa 1973/4

JCB sold on the mopeds after transferring the numbers iirc they bought a block of ten. JCB1 I think is Anthony Bamford's Bentley.

For an urgent owner check at weekends Police had a key to Matlock  records for the County Registrations, it was an alphabetical card system. If the car was sold to someone living  outside derbyshire the card would direct you to say Nott's. Notts would then check their records. If a vehicle  had changed hands a few times it might take over a day to trace it's current owner.

[Orcade-Ian]

Lovely time warp pic there Micky. 
In the 60's and 70's when we ended up with 7 digits on plates, the local office in Hull (Trippett St. for Ash) only issued 1 to 99 numbers to motorcycles to keep no more than 6 digits for the rear plate, so a great many of those have been moved on to expensive cars.  Not sure if that was a Gov thing or just Hull?

Ian

They certainly did stop bike to car/ car to bike (and tractor to anything) transfers but the former is now allowed - I've done one of each recently.

[McCabe-Thiele (Ted)]

Lovely time warp pic there Micky. 
In the 60's and 70's when we ended up with 7 digits on plates, the local office in Hull (Trippett St. for Ash) only issued 1 to 99 numbers to motorcycles to keep no more than 6 digits for the rear plate, so a great many of those have been moved on to expensive cars.  Not sure if that was a Gov thing or just Hull?

Ian

I think many local authorities  (Burton on Trent defo:) used to retain low digit registration numbers not just for motorcycles but they kept low ones for local authority vehicles like snow ploughs, Corporation Busses etc.

Me doing my best to grow a moustache circa 1970.

Ted's Honda 250 circa 1967 by Macabe Thiele, on Flickr

[Bryanj]

It used to be you could go upwards but not backwards on plates with moped at bottom and hgv at top but dvla change the rules every tea break so who  knows.
One nice little earner for them is it costs £80 to tranfer a reg to a retention certificate then if you sell it the new owner has to pay another £80 to use it but if you know the new owners name and tick the small unseen box when asking for cert its only one £80.

Aint our rip off systems wonderfull!!!

[McCabe-Thiele (Ted)]

To my shame I always mixed up my Honda 250 Dream & Honda 250 Super Sport in my head - they were both red.

The Dream was much easier to ride as the SS needed revving like a 400. I think my Dream had square section front headlamp so this must be the SS.

[Orcade-Ian]

Yes Bryan,
When you think of the number of transfers and retentions, let alone the auctioning off of numbers,  most of their staff 'shirking from home' and the 'dual taxation' at change of ownership, you would think their income could wipe out the National debt in one go!

Ian

[AshimotoK0]

Lovely time warp pic there Micky. 
In the 60's and 70's when we ended up with 7 digits on plates, the local office in Hull (Trippett St. for Ash) only issued 1 to 99 numbers to motorcycles to keep no more than 6 digits for the rear plate, so a great many of those have been moved on to expensive cars.  Not sure if that was a Gov thing or just Hull?

Ian

They certainly did stop bike to car/ car to bike (and tractor to anything) transfers but the former is now allowed - I've done one of each recently.

Certainly remember Trippett St local taxation office Ian. B.M.D. Registry office was around there too. When I was about 19 I got glandular fever and had to leave Newcastle Uni 'cos I was really ill afterwards, so my brother got me a job at De-La-Pole Mental Hospital in Willerby until I could go back the next year. One of my jobs was to wet shave the 'Trippett Street gang' .. a bunch of outpatients who lived in accommodation down there. So my claim to fame was that when I was 19 I shaved over 20 times per day! I ended up at Sunderland Poly when I went back (complicated story) and I used to wander down to Cowies motorbike shop to be impressed by the new 400F in 1975 and not so impressed  by the new brown CB500T. Turned out that the 400F I have now (bought in Hull for £100) was the Cowie 400F demonstrator bike... the very one I used to ogle at in their window.

Man I miss the DVLA V888 form service, where you paid  them £5 to check out all the docs they possessed on your vehicle, which they diligently photocopied and sent you by 'Signed-For' post ... and all that for a fiver. I have Mick Taylor (Kettle738) on here to thank for telling me about the V888 form as it unearthed a thick wadge of docs on my '75 400F but sadly very little on my CB750K0. I guess  it was all down to the area that held all of the records and how good they were at retaining the forms.

[Orcade-Ian]

Ash,
Those old 'uns at the Trippett St. office were so helpful.  When I built my first Mini in 69/70 from a nearly new but lightly damaged shell, I went to them to enquire about registration.  Just needed receipts to an untold but not very high value and they issued a brand new number and was even allowed to pick one.  Unfortunately when I took everything later to do the deed,  the number I had reserved (WAT 4J) had mysteriously been allocated to another vehicle. I ended up with 404, which I still have to this day.
I later found out that 'my' number was on a car belonging to those folk who had a dealership in Hull and owned TON I and KAT 1E - you will probably remember who I'm referring to!  Seems like money or favours could have been changing hands even back then.
I later built a 1300 GT (1100 type) for my girlfriend back then and they let me pick GAT 404L for that one.
Times have changed!
Ian

[McCabe-Thiele (Ted)]

Not sure if it was just Staffs but when I used to register a new car I had the manufacturers V55/1 supplied by Audi, Merc or Opel - the licensing office at Burton Town Hall would issue you with a block of say 10 new numbers on the first of the month printed like a book of stamps on a perforated sheet ,e.g. EFA 101 L to say EFA 110.

When I sold a car the customer could pick a number off the sheet, this was detached & stapled onto the V55/1 where the registration mark box was.
At the end of each month we returned any unused numbers - this avoided a number being duplicated or pinched by another dealership.

[Nurse Julie]

Not sure if it was just Staffs but when I used to register a new car I had the manufacturers V55/1 supplied by Audi, Merc or Opel - the licensing office at Burton Town Hall would issue you with a block of say 10 new numbers on the first of the month printed like a book of stamps on a perforated sheet ,e.g. EFA 101 L to say EFA 110.

When I sold a car the customer could pick a number off the sheet, this was detached & stapled onto the V55/1 where the registration mark box was.
At the end of each month we returned any unused numbers - this avoided a number being duplicated or pinched by another dealership.

Thats how it was when I used to register new cars at Maidstone LVLO for Kent and Brighton for Sussex. We used to pick up a sheet of 50 numbers at a time, let the customer choose, and stick to V55/5. We used to keep the best numbers for all our demonstrators 😊😊😊😊

[McCabe-Thiele (Ted)]

I think it might have been V55/5 not V55/1 Julie  I'm trying to remember form numbers from 50 years ago mostly done online these days by new car traders.

[Nurse Julie]

I think it might have been V55/5 not V55/1 Julie  I'm trying to remember form numbers from 50 years ago mostly done online these days by new car traders.

These days it's a V55/4 for new car registrations Ted but I had to look on DVLA to find that out. It was a lifetime ago so maybe it was V55/4 even back then.

[McCabe-Thiele (Ted)]

V55/5 sound about right to me for back then Julie, V55/1 I think with hindsight we used to put UK numbers on Jersey Imports.

[Bryanj]

I can remember the perforated tags but we didnt have to attach them just write the on v55/whatever, always remember the two fsiedx flying bananas in one crate where i built and pdi'd one and the boss the other, 6 months later came in for service together and both had same reg! The boss got his wrong, luckily the v5's were correct it was only the no plate, thank god for stick on number number plates!