Original registration

[PainswickEType]

Hi. I'm wondering if someone might be able to shed some light on a question I've had for years relating to my 1970 E Type convertible?

I bought it knowing that it was a converted left hand drive from California. I have extensive history for the car showing that it was re-imported to the UK in 1990. It sat around in garages for 30 years before I found it and it had never been registered for use on the UK roads since being re-imported.

When I came to register it, I obtained a copy of the original Coventry records office hand written document showing that it had been issued with a UK registration number before it went to the USA. The DVLA were able to re-issue the number back to the car.

I'm wondering if it was common practice to register export cars with a UK number? Always been a mystery to me!

[politeperson]

I dont know the answer but it makes me wonder. Import duty on a second hand car?

The DVLA have a record of all the old vehicle registrations going back over 100 years.

Recently I have applied for V5s for a mini that was taken off the road 45 years ago and an E type that was taken off the road over 500 years ago and they had kept the records somehow.

The question is how is this information stored? For the 1960s on paper?

A reliable way of digitizing all this stuff would be very time consuming and from my experience the process would produce quite a few mistakes.

Must be some archive.

I would love to see it.

On a different tack, I have a UK RHD E type that was manufactured May 1962 but was not registered until mid 1963. What was one of the more desirable cars doing sitting around for a year? Modeling?

[mgcjag]

It wasn't untypical for US service men to purchase sports cars when stationed in the UK then ship them back home...so they would be registeted here....what is on your heritage certificate?......very impressed with James 500 year old E type..a real barn find

[Bob.]

By buying a car for personal export the 30% Purchase Tax for home buyers would not have to be paid so certainly attractive to European based Americans. The Jaguar Personal Export Delivery Price List quotes delivery charges, to include the registration fee and number plates, for Coventry or London.

[PainswickEType]

Of course the Heritage certificate doesn't show a registration, rather it is on the accompanying Jaguar vehicle information sheet. I also have a certificate of authenticity from the Coventry transport museum, along with a copy of the original hand written records showing the date, engine/chassis numbers etc. These are I believe kept on microfiche, which may even now be transferred onto software.

Some interesting ideas. It is shown as being dispatched by the dealers BL New York some three weeks after it was registered in the uk. Most likely it was a tax dodge then??

I do believe that the E Type was the favourite of Henry VIII though.

[politeperson]

500 years. 1562.
Well that is what Phil from Time Team thought after he dad dug it up.

[JerryL770]

The DVLA have a record of all the old vehicle registrations going back over 100 years.

I'm not so sure about that! As I understand it, they only have records for vehicles registered before the DVLA digitisation time, if the local councils which previously registered new vehicles had provided them, or some kind person did so. A large proportion of councils just binned the records.

I know this because a few years ago, I bought a motorcycle which had been off the road since its last tax disc dated 1978. If I had gone to the DVLA with the tax disc when I bought the bike with evidence of engine and frame numbers, I'd have got a V5 with its original registration number. But I didn't, and the rules had changed. A tax disc and old MOT certs were not enough and they would only issue a period reg number. By then it was necessary also to have an original invoice for instance, or brown log book showing the original reg no., frame and engine number were linked.

So if such evidence is available, DVLA will re-issue original registration numbers (in the absence of the original council records).

[politeperson]

Interesting.
I suppose I have been lucky as I have had the original buff log books an all cases and they tie up OK.