Honda-SOHC
SOHC.co.uk Forums => CB500/550 => Topic started by: Charliecharlcomb on May 03, 2025, 05:18:12 PM
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My CB500 was registered in 1976 so is a P reg. It currently has a yellow and black rear numberplate. I've recently seen a company supplying nice looking black and silver plates and am considering a change. Checking the regs. it looks like any pre 1980 machine qualifies.
Would it look silly?
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Not in my opinion
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My CB500 was registered in 1976 so is a P reg. It currently has a yellow and black rear numberplate. I've recently seen a company supplying nice looking black and silver plates and am considering a change. Checking the regs. it looks like any pre 1980 machine qualifies.
Would it look silly?
Got one from Jessops for my old Norton, their website also states pre 1980 is ok.
https://www.jepsonandco.com/ready-made-plates/vintage-classic-plates/ (https://www.jepsonandco.com/ready-made-plates/vintage-classic-plates/)
But I've kept the original plastifilm one on my CB750F1 for period originality.
Those of you who worked in the trade back in the seventies may remember sticking the numbers and letters onto a blank yellow aluminium plate.
Some times finished off with a coat of clear varnish to prevent the black stick on digits from peeling off.
Oh and whoever made up my plate up must have run out of letter 'C' because a zero has been used instead with a notch cut from it so it reads 'C'.
Tricks of the trade...
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Up to you. For originality my Oct 1972 (L reg) Triumph that I bought new was my first with a black/yellow plate.
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I have a black and silver pressed plate fitted to my 1973 500K1. Grahams 1976 K6 750 still has the original yellow pressed plate that was fitted at the dealership.
Personally, I think bikes look strange with the wrong colour after about N reg, it doesn't sit well on the eye for some reason.
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Agreed. For Pre 74 bikes only. Great feedback, thank you.
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Get a reverse engraved black and silver Perspex plate, best of both worlds.
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I think i got mine from a place in Jersey, even cheap postage
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If you watch old TV shows from the 70s, you never see late 70s bikes or cars with black and silver plates. This is because yellow and black were seen as modern at the time, and black and silver old fashioned. I’m not that old, but imagine being 17 in 1976 and having a motorbike, and your parents had a 10 year old car with black and silver plates, you’d want yellow and black ones to look up to date.
Hence my 1976 on a P and came with black and silver plates (installed circa 2021 by last owner) , and I immediately got Jepsons to make period correct yellow and black plates. They use the correct font, not the post 2001 Charles Wright font you see on later yellow and black plastic plates examples, the cheaper eBay kind.
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Lot of truth there, the yellow and black perspex plates were also easier to keep clean, didn’t suffer from letters falling out like the pressed plates could do and as you say looked more modern.
However a few years later I opted for a black and silver reverse engraved plate, the main reason was it wasn’t as easy to see in the dark, as a lot of the time I was being chased by Panda cars for going to quick, I really didn’t like to give them any help at all. Same would apply these days with anpr and cameras. Don’t help them prosecute you 😆😆😆
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Very true Ken, also being a geriatric old fart the silver on black looks better to me on an "old" bike and being honest most of the bikes on here are OLD
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I'm swayed by the safety aspect of a yellow rear plate.
Even in daylight the colour yellow works.
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Very good point!
I'm swayed by the safety aspect of a yellow rear plate.
Even in daylight the colour yellow works.
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My original yellow aluminium plate fell apart after it got bent wheeling the bike out of the workshop. The section with the P on it fell off. I replaced it with a black plate from Tippers. My bike looks older than it is anyway, oily rag condition and has a Lucas headlight and no indicators so it goes very well with the look. As far as safety goes, visibility is important. Hi-vis is very important these days.
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Go for it! It certainly looks different, less offensive for some and gets the right kind of attention too. Here is my CB400F2 with one..... ;D
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Cheeky black and silver plates on my xs650b and a slightly smaller portrait one side mounted on my cb550
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I think I'll stick with the yellow one that was on the bike when I bought it in 1976, my days of turning the lights off on the motorway and nipping down a slip road are well past.
Cheers
Dennis
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Each to their own - put on which plate you prefer
My 3 classic bikes all have pressed black & silver plates, because I prefer the look of them
Given that pressed plates are easily bent, I have perspex plates behind them for reinforcement - well worth doing
My nearly finished 1972 CB500 four is an RC181 replica from 1967, so I have purchased an 'E' suffix Plate from that year to transfer onto it - to me it's a nice touch, to others it's frivolous.....as I said at the start of this post: 'each to their own '
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Personal preferences. I only have one Honda with a black and silver plate my 1973 750k3, I did “him and hay” about the type of plate to put on it but i agree with Julie that later 70’s bike with these plates on look a bit strange.
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Personally, I think bikes look strange with the wrong colour after about N reg, it doesn't sit well on the eye for some reason.
I think they need wire wheels for black plates and a lack of plastic too, as with my 1978 S reg CB400f2. Cast wheels and plastic just don't look classic anymore.
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Depends on the style of casting. I have Lesters on my 500 and they suit the black and silver plate being black and silver themselves.
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I am going to put a black and silver plate on my 1975 550 N reg and think it will look ok but wouldn’t dream of putting one on my 1979 CBX it would just look wrong.
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I am going to put a black and silver plate on my 1975 550 N reg and think it will look ok but wouldn’t dream of putting one on my 1979 CBX it would just look wrong.
(https://garagewire.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Black-and-Silver-number-plate-760x500.jpg)
Then again, up until 1988 British forces in Germany all had black number plates ending in B, like this one. ( although I'm sure this is a UK B reg example.) When it is official it is normal again!
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All this talk about black & white number plates reminded me of the plates you saw in the late 1960's that were Export Home Delivery Temporary Number Plates, the VRM's were not the usual ones for the County Letters iirc.
They were Black & White plates with a distinctive yellow border, you could drive for a limited period in the UK (6 months?) before you exported the vehicle abroad. Back then there was no VAT, just purchase tax, the yellow border showed HMRC that the vehicle had been purchesed without this tax.
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Yes
Your bike should be yellow and black plates
No argument
If you want it original that's how it is.
No body in the 70's wanted black plates it just aged the bikes .
It's just a new modern trendy thing
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For example...
Every barn find bike of a certain age has a yellow and black plate..if you want to look original...
No bike after 71ish would have ablack silver plate why would you spend thousands of pounds on a restoration and then put the wrong period number plate on it
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Just to throw a spanner in the works, the number plate is not part of the motorcycle as such!😳 Don’t think Honda made them! It’s an accessory requirement to enable us to take to the highway.😜
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Yes
Your bike should be yellow and black plates
No argument
If you want it original that's how it is.
No body in the 70's wanted black plates it just aged the bikes .
It's just a new modern trendy thing
Your post has made my day, at the age of 70 I'm "Moden & Trendy"!
My brain has known this for years, it's just my body that's letting the side down
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I get a black/silver plate reprieve then because my 550 isn't a restoration
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It's just a new modern trendy thing
I don't agree :o I got old fashioned number plates because I'm an old fashioned guy. Black number plates are for people who think things should be the way they used to be. ( within reason! 8) ) Bring back the birch! ;D
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I would not go back to a Black & White TV, ;D
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I would not go back to a Black & White TV, ;D
Still don't agree ;D I love the subtle classic character of B&W!
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Xxxx
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77 would have been predominantly flat metal with stick on letters/numbers as it was quick and easy
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I would not go back to a Black & White TV, ;D
Most of what I watch are old B&W films. They still have a certain charm.
The TVs were a piece of furniture as well and mostly easy to fix apart from when the customer over watered the pot plant sitting on top or used their crutches to change channels. Always great fun fixing rentals in people's homes, having your face licked by the dog while you were lying on your back soldering components in on the underside of the chassis.
Back to the subject - number plates are a personal choice, I think they look a bit odd on a 'modern bike' because I haven't known any different to yellow, even my N reg fizzie had yellow plastic at the back and curved white one on the front mudguard.
Regards
Dave