Be honest, most of us don’t give registration numbers much of a thought, probably only jogging our memory when insuring our vehicles or when tapping in the jumble of letters and numbers to pay for overpriced car park charges and the like. The first UK registration was issued back in 1903, appropriately starting with ‘A1’ in London where the first recipient was a certain Mr Earl Russell who queued up all night outside his council’s offices to acquire this legendary numberplate which now it’s believed to be affixed to a BMW MINI!
Now known as dateless numberplates, the format was initially two letters signifying the registration council area and a selection of numbers which ran from one to four. However, by 1932 this format was soon exhausted, so the Department of Transport added a third letter into the mix but with one less number for reasons not known – because after 20 years that too was soon running out of permutations.
