The Triumph Dolomite Club - Discussion Forum

Steve,

I have a very similar view on black plates. I think that they were originally legal up to, and including, L registration, so anything newer than that just looks wrong to me. Over 3 decades ago I had a VW Beetle and a TR6, both L registration and on black plates. My S registration Dolomite will be staying on white/yellow plates.

Carledo wrote: ↑Fri May 30, 2025 8:36 pm

.. Plates aren't ILLEGAL Mart, since whenever it was the rolling VED exemption restarted (2014?) it's been legal to put a black plate on a historic registered car...

IMHO this isn't quite true. The gov back tracked and changed the law in 2021, so only historic vehicles constructed before 1st jan 1980 can show black reg plates. This means that the very last dollies constructed in 1980 must have reflective plates.

wgcjim20 wrote: ↑Sat May 31, 2025 6:01 pm

Carledo wrote: ↑Fri May 30, 2025 8:36 pm

.. Plates aren't ILLEGAL Mart, since whenever it was the rolling VED exemption restarted (2014?) it's been legal to put a black plate on an historic registered car...

IMHO this isn't quite true. The gov back tracked and changed the law in 2021, so only historic vehicles constructed before 1st jan 1980 can show black reg plates. This means that the very last dollies constructed in 1980 must have reflective plates.

Well, I knew they were having second thoughts about black plates on historic cars, mostly because the historic classification can now be applied to cars on an "A" or "B" PREFIX, which seems a total anachronism. But I hadn't heard any more, despite my normal habit of keeping my ear to the ground and had kind of figured that, when they got around to it, they'd ban them from prefix registered cars and restrict the black plates to suffix and earlier. So this cutoff date of Jan '80 is news AND a bit of a surprise to me. This apparently arbitrary new cutoff date is, I suppose, typical of DVLA and I shouldn't be surprised!

But, in any case, since I prefer to stick to the ORIGINAL rules of Yellow/White plates after 72 on purely aesthetic grounds and all 3 of my Dolomites are registered post Jan 73 (albeit 1 is only by a couple of months) you won't be seeing any of my cars on black plates.

Steve

The car was sold last week apparently for £20K according to a mate who was trying to view it.

It was being M.O.T. Tested so he couldn't have a look at the time, it is going to Wales, anyone on here purchased it?

Gary