ian Stanbury
Enthusiast
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Team Geary-Stanbury are currently hugely involved in trying to corner the market in the acquisitions of all old Citroens in Europe and thanks to our Senior Investigatory Officer in our Acquisition Office at Sea View Cottage in Southam, we are on the case of a 1967 DS21 Pallas still in the original family ownership in sunny Greece..
As we don't have an office in Greece, we have enlisted the help of our friend and most prolific Athens agent Angel in the case and here in his his latest report form the front line..A small explanation is required to help you keep up to speed on this matter: The DS 21 has a Greek Blue Classic car number plate.
So read on, this is absolutely brilliant and many many thanks Angel for all your hard work..
Hello Ian
To make things clear with the number plates. Greek tax system for cars relies solely on the engine's cubic capacity to categorize a car to a tax class. What's more, one was allowed to own one car (or the sum of their cubic capacity, if two or more) up to a cc limit depending of his yearly income. If he owned a car with a bigger engine, he would pay a rather hefty tax in the end of the year. If this was one time insane for a contemporary car, it was ten times for a classic or vintage car, that at least was not intended to be used, but rather preserved, and we are talking about the 70s when "classics" were pre-war cars with huge engines.
So the, then newly established, Hellenic Antique Car Club discussed with the Ministry of Transportation, and they agreed to invent historic number plates, which allowed classic and vintage cars to have a form of registration to be able to be driven to and during events and for maintenance. The vehicle should have first been rendered immobile by the two ways I described you, so as it had no longer government license plates it was not needed to pay road tax, income tax, be insured or undergo technical control. What was only needed was that the vehicle was at least 20 years old, and be original and in good shape at the time it was inspected. These number plates were (and still are) four digit ones with an orange surround.
Up until mid 90s this was no big deal, as the majority of classics was 50s or 60s or earlier cars that were owned by enthusiasts and were not driven regularly. But around 2000, more practical cars (mid and late 70s) could benefit from historic plates, and be used without having to pay any road tax or have a technical control etc. Some people from a second major classic car club saw the future (and money they could earn...) and, by using that regulation of 1978, and the fact that they represented FHVE in Greece, started giving their own number plates to their members. These were the blue-framed ones, just like on Anna's DS.
But since this federation were newcomers, they had to make sometihng to attract "customers". So they issued plates to everyone with a 20-years or earlier car (in the meanwile, official age limit had been raised to 25 years old), be it original or clean looking or not...You could see,say, a Mercedes W126 with such plates, in everyday use ("I'm sorry, officer, I am driving it to Angelos to have it repaired..."), and with its owner paying only about 100 euros a year (an elementary insurance, plus subscription to the club). If he had cosen to retain the government number plates, he would have to pay around 450 euros road tax, some 500 euros insurance, and the adiitional tax, if he was unlucky enough to earn less than the limit allowed for such a big engined car...Plus, he had to pass the technical control every two years!
The "other side" (the orange guys) reacted, not because they wanted to preserve other classic car owners' rights, but because they saw some potential member leakage towards the "blue" side, and wanted to have the monopoly on historic number plates...So, after taking the blue guys to the courts, an addition to the original regulation was made by the Ministry of Transport that excluded them from issuing number plates. It was around 2006.
What followed is unclear, the blue guys continued issuing some few number plates, I think that "blue" cars could not be insured, they were not allowed to participate in "orange" sanctioned events and so on...Nobody made clear, too, if the blue plates already issued were still legal or not.
That said, "orange" plates were, and are, "almost" legal ("almost" is the modus operandi in this country...). Cars with historic plates can be driven anywhere and anytime you want, if you are lucky or cautious enough not to be stopped by a police officer for inspection. But ever if you do, you can always have the correct excuse, and police officers are not really aware of what happens with historic cars and their number plates...Matters are complexed though if you are involved in a crash, in which case no insurance company will pay your damage (or the other car's damage if it was your fault) and you may have other troubles with the law too. There are some rumours about such instances, nothing is confirmed, unfortunately.
Certainly you are not allowed to drive a car with "blue" plates abroad. Owners of cars with "orange" plates have driven them on international events, but there was at least one of them who needed to go to Germany (alone) and had to hve temporary German plates issued.
I have placed a question at a local classics forum here, and am awaiting answers about how can such a car be driven abroad. I will try to ask my insurance company about temporary insurance tomorrow ,too, but the problem is that you will not be able to get Greek plates to your name (assuming that the car is under temporary immobilization), because you don't have a Greek tax ID
.Sorry if I made you going asleep, or mad, but I had to explain you briefly how things work here!
As we don't have an office in Greece, we have enlisted the help of our friend and most prolific Athens agent Angel in the case and here in his his latest report form the front line..A small explanation is required to help you keep up to speed on this matter: The DS 21 has a Greek Blue Classic car number plate.
So read on, this is absolutely brilliant and many many thanks Angel for all your hard work..
Hello Ian
To make things clear with the number plates. Greek tax system for cars relies solely on the engine's cubic capacity to categorize a car to a tax class. What's more, one was allowed to own one car (or the sum of their cubic capacity, if two or more) up to a cc limit depending of his yearly income. If he owned a car with a bigger engine, he would pay a rather hefty tax in the end of the year. If this was one time insane for a contemporary car, it was ten times for a classic or vintage car, that at least was not intended to be used, but rather preserved, and we are talking about the 70s when "classics" were pre-war cars with huge engines.
So the, then newly established, Hellenic Antique Car Club discussed with the Ministry of Transportation, and they agreed to invent historic number plates, which allowed classic and vintage cars to have a form of registration to be able to be driven to and during events and for maintenance. The vehicle should have first been rendered immobile by the two ways I described you, so as it had no longer government license plates it was not needed to pay road tax, income tax, be insured or undergo technical control. What was only needed was that the vehicle was at least 20 years old, and be original and in good shape at the time it was inspected. These number plates were (and still are) four digit ones with an orange surround.
Up until mid 90s this was no big deal, as the majority of classics was 50s or 60s or earlier cars that were owned by enthusiasts and were not driven regularly. But around 2000, more practical cars (mid and late 70s) could benefit from historic plates, and be used without having to pay any road tax or have a technical control etc. Some people from a second major classic car club saw the future (and money they could earn...) and, by using that regulation of 1978, and the fact that they represented FHVE in Greece, started giving their own number plates to their members. These were the blue-framed ones, just like on Anna's DS.
But since this federation were newcomers, they had to make sometihng to attract "customers". So they issued plates to everyone with a 20-years or earlier car (in the meanwile, official age limit had been raised to 25 years old), be it original or clean looking or not...You could see,say, a Mercedes W126 with such plates, in everyday use ("I'm sorry, officer, I am driving it to Angelos to have it repaired..."), and with its owner paying only about 100 euros a year (an elementary insurance, plus subscription to the club). If he had cosen to retain the government number plates, he would have to pay around 450 euros road tax, some 500 euros insurance, and the adiitional tax, if he was unlucky enough to earn less than the limit allowed for such a big engined car...Plus, he had to pass the technical control every two years!
The "other side" (the orange guys) reacted, not because they wanted to preserve other classic car owners' rights, but because they saw some potential member leakage towards the "blue" side, and wanted to have the monopoly on historic number plates...So, after taking the blue guys to the courts, an addition to the original regulation was made by the Ministry of Transport that excluded them from issuing number plates. It was around 2006.
What followed is unclear, the blue guys continued issuing some few number plates, I think that "blue" cars could not be insured, they were not allowed to participate in "orange" sanctioned events and so on...Nobody made clear, too, if the blue plates already issued were still legal or not.
That said, "orange" plates were, and are, "almost" legal ("almost" is the modus operandi in this country...). Cars with historic plates can be driven anywhere and anytime you want, if you are lucky or cautious enough not to be stopped by a police officer for inspection. But ever if you do, you can always have the correct excuse, and police officers are not really aware of what happens with historic cars and their number plates...Matters are complexed though if you are involved in a crash, in which case no insurance company will pay your damage (or the other car's damage if it was your fault) and you may have other troubles with the law too. There are some rumours about such instances, nothing is confirmed, unfortunately.
Certainly you are not allowed to drive a car with "blue" plates abroad. Owners of cars with "orange" plates have driven them on international events, but there was at least one of them who needed to go to Germany (alone) and had to hve temporary German plates issued.
I have placed a question at a local classics forum here, and am awaiting answers about how can such a car be driven abroad. I will try to ask my insurance company about temporary insurance tomorrow ,too, but the problem is that you will not be able to get Greek plates to your name (assuming that the car is under temporary immobilization), because you don't have a Greek tax ID
.Sorry if I made you going asleep, or mad, but I had to explain you briefly how things work here!
