Discuss:
We notice that there are more and more cherished number plates appearing on cars nowadays and I was wondering what others think about the idea?
We've had ours for over 10 years now but it wasn't one of those expensive jobs. £250 all in.
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No it's not the one displayed on the photo but I can only wish.
There is a long story about why we purchased ours and it means nothing at all outside our own environment except it could but doesn't relate to my initials. I think that they are a OK as long as you don't change your car too often. Obviously, if you're proud of your car and look after its appearance then a cherished number plate helps disguise its age. In the case of our reg. it's prefix number is coincidentally very close to the year of manufacture of our Eriba which has a square rear number plate so it looks quite good on it.
I think I'm right in saying that in some countries, the car registration is owned by the person and follows him/her around rather than staying with the car. Do others think there's some merit in this?
Are cherished plates allowed in France, Holland and Germany and, if so, how do they manage when the caravan needs its own identity?
Lately I found on the DVLA website, the following number plate for £399. ER 11 BAS. I did point it out to another Eriba owner but unfortunately he wasn't in a position to purchase it. I then Emailed Automotive Leisure about it thinking that surely they would snap it up. They have not responded
R

What ho, Brigadier

For what it's worth I've got mixed views on personal plates. That they are mixed is largely because I've got one on Frau Audi.

Mrs Le Pew's dad had B17-PLT on his car in the States, and after he passed away a couple of years ago we thought it might be quite a nice thing to see if we could get a similar plate over here.

He had that plate because he was a B17 pilot in the war - the youngest Fortress captain of the war, as far as we're aware. He was just turned 18 when they threw him the keys and told him not to wrap it round a tree. We reckon he had every right to stick that plate on his car.

In the USA the requirements vary from state to state. In Tennessee to all intents and purposes you can (or could, back then) have anything you like as long as someone else didn't have it, that it wasn't offensive and comprised six characters. If you weren't fussed you got given a plate with a set of characters on it which were randomly allocated.

When we lived there our Accord had 2LC-155, so we called it Elsie. Well you would, wouldn't you.

The plate belongs to the person, not the vehicle, and instead of having to renew a tax disc you renew a sticker each year which is fixed to the plate. Since it's your plate, transferring it from car to car is a much simpler and cheaper operation than it is here.

Sadly, some goon had already got B17 PLT, so we got B17 HGW instead, since HGW were his initials.

I don't really have a problem with the idea of having a plate which gives your car a bit of individuality, but it's a different matter if the characters are mis-spaced, altered in some other (illegal) way or make use of the fixing bolts as punctuation in a lame attempt to make them read something that they don't even remotely resemble.

That's just muppetry. And ninety-nine times out of a hundred the person driving it is a muppet too, and drives accordingly.

I can't think of an example off the top of my head, but I don't doubt you've seen loads of them yourself.

I think the use of personal plates in European varies from country to country. To the best of my knowledge they don't exist in France, but you can have a kind of simplistic version in Germany.

There's a mass of information on Wikipedia if you can be arsed to plough through it all.

R4 NDA would indeed be quite nifty...

He had that plate because he was a B17 pilot in the war - the youngest Fortress captain of the war, as far as we're aware. He was just turned 18 when they threw him the keys and told him not to wrap it round a tree. We reckon he had every right to stick that plate on his car
Fascinating. And I bet he was very modest about it. I find people like your Dad-in -Law and mine for that matter, enthralling.
Is this a B17?
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We visited Duxford last year while on the way up to the Eriba Rally at Woodhall Spa.

> Is this a B17?

Yes it is.

Harry's B17 didn't get wrapped round a tree, it ended up in a field in Belgium on Christmas Eve 1944. It was hit by flak and once he'd realised (I don't think it took too long to work out) that it wasn't going to go any further he ordered the crew to abandon ship.

They all came down safely just on the allied side of the front line.

Coincidentally Mrs Le Pew had an e-mail about six months ago from a young Belgian student who has embarked on a study of 8th Air Force aircraft which were shot down over Belgium.

He had found her e-mail address in the course of researching one particular crash site, and sent her copies of some grainy photographs of a surprisingly intact Flying Fortress sitting forlornly in the mud surrounded by some of the locals. I say surprisingly, because the plane completed its descent from a decent altitude with nobody at the controls. It was the fact that it wasn't just a heap of twisted Duralumin and bent propeller blades that made us wonder if he'd sent her pictures of the wrong plane, but it was indeed Harry's, a fact borne out by the tail markings.

There is an online register of all The Mighty 8th's aircraft and what fate befell them, but I can't recall the website address off the top of my head.

That register confirmed that the plane was later salvaged, as were an awful lot of the ones which ended their service in similar circumstances.

So not only was he the youngest B17 pilot of the war, he was also a grateful member of The Caterpillar Club, as were his crew.

The Caterpillar Club, in case you didn't know, is an informal club which requires only one qualification of its members. That qualification is that they successfully baled out of a disabled aircraft.

Silk is the caterpillar connection...

Here's a coincidence, I recently sent this picture (that I came across by chance on line this afternoon) to my brother who is an English Bull Terrier owner and WWII aircraft enthusiast. I'm not sure about the plane type though.

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That's a B17G.

Looks to have fared rather better than this one.

Just got a 'Forbidden 404' message when I tried to follow that link.

I don't.

Anyway, it doesn't matter.

It's a photograph of a B17G that made its way back to Blighty with almost everything missing forward of the cockpit.

insufferably vain and hopelessly proud of my motor
And why not? There are very few pleasures in life and I for one, enjoy sporting my number plate around the locality. Most local people do notice it

Quote: Forseti wrote in post #12

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Well, like the UK has what it terms 'Sync Ports' (or should that be Sinc?)

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Quote: Forseti wrote in post #14

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Oh, right - I stand corrected, thanks.

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