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DVLA and historic status

ggcton

Enthusiast
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Grimoldby Lincolnshire
I got my copy of the federation of Historic Vehicles Magazine today and it looks like we are going to have to be very careful as to how we restore Vehicles.We have always known about percentage content of parts but that looks as if it might be extended and it would be easy to loose the vehicles identity and year of manufacture.Questions are being asked about reconstruction using new chassis and shells and it all looks a bit complicated.When I get my electronic copy I will try and copy some of it on to this site.
For the present good advice would be to repair what you have and ensure continuity of the registration.
If you have history of the vehicle even old pictures keep them safe in case needed in the future.
 
Here in Poland frame can not be changed. It is the only part that has VIN on it and it makes the car. I can swap anything but not the frame.

However it is much easier to get historic status .
 
Is this another new and very badly thought out law from the EU again? Previously there was a points system where you got 5 points for a chassis, 2 points for suspension, 2 points for axles, 2 points for gearbox, 2 points for the steering, and oddly only 1 point for the engine. If you could manage 8 points in all that you could keep your original registration number. Is there a link to the new rules?

My approach for new and badly thought out laws from the EU is to just ignore them unless they get enforced so I currently break EU laws roughly 1 million times a day. We can vote against the people who enforce these laws but not against the EU who make the laws (happily we can take that opportunity with the referendum in the next couple of years).

I didn't mind when badly thought out EU laws were to do with straightening out cucumbers, but about 4 in the last year have been aimed squarely at me. This could be number 5. Apologies to everyone on here who will soon have to dismiss a pop up about cookies. I am not allowed to break that law any more.
 
Is this another new and very badly thought out law from the EU again? Previously there was a points system where you got 5 points for a chassis, 2 points for suspension, 2 points for axles, 2 points for gearbox, 2 points for the steering, and oddly only 1 point for the engine. If you could manage 8 points in all that you could keep your original registration number. Is there a link to the new rules?

My approach for new and badly thought out laws from the EU is to just ignore them unless they get enforced so I currently break EU laws roughly 1 million times a day. We can vote against the people who enforce these laws but not against the EU who make the laws (happily we can take that opportunity with the referendum in the next couple of years)..

I didn't mind when badly thought out EU laws were to do with straightening out cucumbers, but about 4 in the last year have been aimed squarely at me. This could be number 5. Apologies to everyone on here who will soon have to dismiss a pop up about cookies. I am not allowed to break that law any more.
Not law yet but dicussions and letters gone out to some historic Vehicle owners I gather more in the line of pre war expensive cars
 
I can just kind of see the twisted logic that might be involved in them trying to decide what year it should be on the registration documentation. For example trying to decide whether a car is pre 1930 and VSCC eligible or not (Over here in Victoria, last time I registered an Austin 7 Special, they went entirely on Engine number to determine age) or large sum of money depends on the result. Frankly in this case for a not new but not quite so old car it doesn't make much sense. And honestly if you buy a replacement chassis that is a TUV etc etc approved replacement, and it doesn't have a number assigned to it, what is to stop you re-stamping the number on to the new chassis to match the plate under the bonnet? What would you do if your car got t-boned and it was repairable and the only bit that had to be cut out and replaced was the bit by the seat rail with the duplicate chassis no. stamped on it?

On old aircraft you can entirely legally rebuild an aircraft airframe from a few fittings and a legible build plate with everything else completely new, as long as all the new stuff complies with the type certificate data. Some of the nicest Spitfires and Kittyhawks flying around have had just that done.

Also on R4s you have both a car no. and a chassis no because the chassis is a seperate part. Maybe we should just interpret "chassis" as "frame" or "structure" or "complete monocoque" ie body niumber? Citroen 2CV owners change their chassis as often as their undies, I bet they don't worry about losing their cherished numberplates.

The problem with a lot of the EU regs is that normally on continental Europe they are buffered and distilled by a bureaucracy that are smart enough to ignore the silly bits leaving the UK enforcers to try to apply all the twiddly bits instead of ignoring them.
 
To be fair to the DVLA and VOSA the UK laws to do with cars seem generally sensible and they haven't adopted many of the much stricter rules from other EU countries. Yet.

It will be interesting to see what they are up to. Do keep us posted Gary. All I have found is the news snippet from the FBHVC
http://www.fbhvc.co.uk/about-us/new...-requesting-documentary-proof-of-vehicle-age/
and
http://www.fbhvc.co.uk/about-us/news/_article/72/dvla-matters/
where the DVLA seems not to like new body shells.
 
From what I was hearing last night, a few Bugatti owners may be shitting worthless bricks at the moment!
 
Reading various forums it sounds more like they are just starting to enforce whats always been there. Nothing new.

The problem with the Bugatti's is owners were requesting historic registrations for vehicles with new chassis, new body, new engines etc and basically requesting a new historic registration for a new car !!

Not to mention the cars where one got the chassis another got the body and a third got the engine resulting in 3 newly registered cars from from 1...

Note, as the DVLA website says for new registrations the rules are stricter than the points system (and have been for a while I believe).
If your car has a V5 then its points system as normal.
(Which should allow a new chassis or bodyshell as long as its unmodified interesting to hear discussions about this one)

(My take on it is because a request for a historic registration effectively resets the point system as that was the car when inspected it can make a bit of a mockery of the points system if rather than the date being 2015 for something new its 1927)

For example is this rather nice car registered as 2015 or 1927 (lets hope not road registered or 2015 and on a Q Plate)
http://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C634667
 
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I found some stuff on other forums searching for 'DVLA Bugatti'. The suggestion is it is something to do with an MOT rule change coming into force in 2018 which will exempt cars over 30 year old from the MOT test.

http://www.dft.gov.uk/classic-mot/

Although the new rule is from Europe (European Roadworthiness Package) who have a tendency to aim one way with a new law and end up hitting everyone apart from the intended targets. Looks like a Renault 4 with a Gordini engine would not be exempt from the MOT because it has been modified, and would fail the MOT because it has been modified. Anyone want any parts?
 
The substantial changes thing is an odd one, that website has been around for a while. In some ways an R4 with a Gordini Engine is a nice simple case R4 with engine from slightly later or same period model the R5.

Lotus 6/7's for instance lots of those are running all kinds of engines from all kinds of cars only a few have the original ford side valve.

MOT Exemption in general still feels bad especially if extended to 30 years. (The government keeps shooting it self in the foot by RELAXING our safety standards to match Europe)

I'm not pro Europe or anything BUT don't blame Europe as the website clearly states
"The new rules allow member states to exempt vehicles from testing if they:"
So its 100% our government they could just not exempt anything from testing which I would prefer...

It kind of makes sense - cars can drive freely in Europe so there should be some base guideline for what can drive around without any inspection. (Alternatively adds another group of people to the Out campaign)
 
The latest information I could find about whether the Gordini will still be legal was from 2012. Have things moved on from then? I would have thought there would have been a lot of complaining about it.

I'm planning to take the (MOT exempt) MG for an MOT every couple of years. It is useful to have the second pair of eyes, and good motivation to do the maintenance.
 
A little more digging found sensible talk from our Austin 7 friends. http://pub25.bravenet.com/forum/static/show.php?usernum=2099944454&frmid=5&msgid=994876&cmd=show

In page 2 the DVLA is quoted saying this isn't to do with the Euro thing. On page 3 the suspicion is the DVLA is annoyed that the Bugatti Owners Club issued 185 new age related chassis numbers.

Things will apparently be clarified in September which will be good. I realised I hadn't told the DVLA about my engine change so I've sent the form in while they are still busy dealing with Bugattis.
 
Hence my comment about Bugatti, it seems a few chummy friends have been helping to get a few cars registered, it's to do with the fact that car clubs are authorised to do due diligence and check on the status of these cars...
 
Dvla didn't believe me when I tried to tell them I had fitted a diesel engine to my wife's megane cabriolet and wanted a receipt for work carried out by a recognised specialist or receipt for the engine
I even gave them the registration mark of the car it came out of 15 years ago
Systems says not good enough as I might give them wrong information
Last 3 years mot tested as diesel no problem so I gave up I've given the information they need
they choose not to believe me
Rodeo registration should be fun if club not allowed to verify it who else would be able to confirm it's age for registration purposes
 
Dvla didn't believe me when I tried to tell them I had fitted a diesel engine to my wife's megane cabriolet and wanted a receipt for work carried out by a recognised specialist or receipt for the engine
I even gave them the registration mark of the car it came out of 15 years ago
Systems says not good enough as I might give them wrong information
Last 3 years mot tested as diesel no problem so I gave up I've given the information they need
they choose not to believe me
Rodeo registration should be fun if club not allowed to verify it who else would be able to confirm it's age for registration purposes

Hey Paul....

JUST WONDERING WHAT THE DVLA WOULD SAY ABOUT THIS ONE ???


http://suchen.mobile.de/fahrzeuge/d...700&makeModelVariant1.modelId=28&pageNumber=7

It all fits in the address bar.
What a difference in two days. There we were grabbing all the attention with the 4GTL yesterday in sunny Carmarthenshire/Cardiganshire............
Today ??
All I can say is I sincerely hope everyone on this forum is getting better weather than us !!

regards
 
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