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Prefix Number Plates.
The term "Prefix Number Plates" refers to car registrations that were in use from August 1983 through till August 2001. They were introduced to replace the exhausted suffix system which ran out of combinations. Each registration commenced with a letter which signified the age of the vehicle. This initial letter was followed by one, two or three numbers. Then after a space a further three letters completed the registration.
Incidentally, in common with ageless registrations it is possible to identify the area of the country the vehicle was first registered by the last two letters of the number.
Also certain combinations were not used during the normal registration process and were later made available to buy for use as private number plates. These were numbers 1 to 20 in all prefixes and also for prefixes J and later the repeating numbers ( 22,333 etc ) and decimal numbers ( 20,300 etc) were kept back.
Towards the end of their life, prefix numbers were changed every 6 months instead of yearly ( S prefix and later ), this smoothed out demand for new vehicles over the calender year and also ensured that the series would end in 2001 which is when the current system took over.
If you have any questions regarding any of the above , please contact us by email or telephone.
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