[RichardT10829]

you are right in some respects...... it is not illegal in the UK to reproduce a vin plate as long as the details contained on the plate are correct for the vehicle ie if it was a car the plate would have to be correct to the stamped in vin on the chassis and other hidden VIN's which most folk dont know about (and i will not discuss any further for obvious reasons)

so say you had a mini. the visible vin is located in the gutter on the scuttle infront of the drivers seat, the vin plate is mounted on the slam pannel at the front where the bonnet meets the grille this part often corrodes and the plates either get binned or lost so you can reproduce plates to match the numbers in the chassis

NOW THEN:-

same chap has the same mini but the mini is registered as a 1964 austin mini.....he wants to make some money... and the car he has although nice is not worth that much money and this guy wants to make mega bucks so he goes onto ebay and buys an old V5 document for a 1964 austin mini cooper S.....he then goes back into his garage and welds over the numbers in the scuttle pannel and removes all the glass, then places the Cooper S Reg and plates onto the chassis.....now remember the plates came from a scrapped cooper S but the documents were retained....neither car was stolen......

dispite this you have stepped over the line and you have broken the law.

this is a very popular problem in the UK especially with Mini's and old Landrovers mainly because with mini's you get the cars value to rise from 3k to circa 19k and with landrovers its a way folk avoid paying road tax.

what you are doing is slightly different as the vehicles were not registered perse....

think of it as you building a caterham 7 car and you want to register it you can put anything you like as the chassis number....even BOLLOX1234 if you wish. i know chap that had his name and date of birth for the car something like ROB12012010.

the problem may arrise for those who dont know all their details for 100% certainty and they get a plate made.....later down the line another carrier is dragged from its rusty tomb and it has its plate in situ which contains some of the details you have used.

you cannot use plates from one carrier and put it on another.. this goes back to the mini scenario.

my advise...and it may not be liked ? is those in the situation where they do not know all their details can provide to you what they do know then for the missing details you give it any number but.....either before or after you place a mark be it a pip or a line....anything that way you can say to the powers that be this number has been given based on research however not 100% the mark identifies this number as questionable or not 100%

finally the question would be raised that these vehicles were never fully registered and those that were have long since gone...when the reg has not been used or has not flagged up in the system for a period of time, the details go back into the pot (so to speak) and the reg would be re issued for example those who have registered carriers in the UK will have numbers previously used on cars / bikes etc it is rare you will get a reg number of that period that has not been used before... my pal has an old 40's period number on his brand new audi.....cherrished transfer.

with documents especially in the UK i would need to sit down with a pint and spend a few hours explaining it i have kept it as simple as i can and have still babbled on so it gives you an idea


i know a little bit about this stuff especially for a brick layer !

Also a true vin contains a hell of alot of detail in the number sequence ie, make, model, trim type, date of manufacture, factory/country of manufacture and a unique random sequence.......

losely translated i suppose our plates are a vin but it could be argued that it was for military purposes for servicing and armament issues like a reference plate

i dont think you will have any issues to be fair George as there is no propper register for these things (i dont think)