In 1903 Car Registrations were introduced, to enable owners of vehicles to be identified. The Introduction of The Motor Car Act made it compulsory registration codes for all motorised vehicles to be registered with a Car Registration.

Responding to the Act of 1903, a now long-forgotten Westminster civil servant came up with a straightforward, easily recognizable system of vehicle registration marks – which developed into one of the most enduring features of the entire age of motoring in the British Isles. The new alphabet-based system included a regional identification plan, founded on the then national arrangement of county councils and county borough councils (burgh councils in Scotland). Early registration marks consisted of single letters and up to four numbers, the letters representing strategically placed urban or rural councils in descending order of total population around the British Isles. Under this system, the first registration mark to be allocated was A 1, issued by London County Council soon after the 1903 legislation received royal assent. Some letters – G, I, S, V and Z – were earmarked for use in Scotland and Ireland, and along with Q, were withheld. The remaining twenty letters were insufficient to provide all English authorities with registration allocations, so (with some exceptions, particularly combinations that included letters from the list above as ‘second’ letters) two-letter combinations starting at AA and preceding as far as FP were also issued.

Nowadays however Car Registrations have become the most popular accessory for the modern day car owner. People are now choosing to replace their standard issue numbers with car registrations stating their initials. Car Owners these days are looking to stand out in the crowd are adding distinctive car registrations to their vehicles. For example one funny number plate that is being offered for sale by Speedy Registrations is DO57 COW. These days hundreds of car registrations are being sold each week, with prices starting from £40 plus VAT plus Transfer Fee.

Since the Introduction of Car Registrations in the GB mainland there have been various formats:

1. Dateless
2. Suffix
3. Prefix
4. Current Style

Dateless

The earliest type of registration survived for an incredible 60 years, from 1904, and had nothing at all to denote the year of issue.

Initially, the marks were made up of a local council identifier code, of up to 3 letters, followed by a random number, eg. ABC 123.
In the early 1950s, as numbers started to run out, the components were reversed, giving rise to registrations in the format 123 ABC.

All dateless registrations are now in high demand, especially short combinations, 60 E for example, which is worth in excess of £12,000 because of the single initial and the fact it is made up of only three characters.