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Cars You Never See Anymore

I saw an Austin Maestro in the wild today. White, ‘L’ reg (which is later than I thought they got to). Kudos to whoever has made the effort to keep something so mediocre on the road. Looked like a youngish driver and fairly well kept so I’m guessing it’s in safe hands.
 
Field report: Portugal, April 2022.

Spotted so far: Ford Orion, Several Corsas with a boot (sold as the heavily twocked Nova in the U.K.), 2CV, a nice old boxy Fiat Panda (always parked round the corner from the inlaw’s beach flat).

Not spotted: Renault 5 / Renault 4. A couple of years back there were at least half a dozen 5s in the town, but none sighted yet. Either growing prosperity or Covid bumping off the grandads.

Photos may follow.
Final report:

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Volvo 340 saloon, putrid green finish

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Did see a few of these in the end, at least two still in town.

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Something sporty snapped through the rear windscreen. Basically anything with a black numberplate in Portugal is from before something like 1987, so always catches my eye. Tempted to suggest it’s an 80s Porsche from when they went a bit boxy, but I’ll probably get slapped down by people who know stuff about cars.

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Very tidy Corolla

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Another ‘black plate’ snapped from a moving car.

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a ‘4’ in some kind of municipal use.

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A Corsa (Nova in the U.K.)
eta: particularly fond of the ‘Swing’ model branding. We don’t see as much of it these days. A friend had a Nissan Micra ‘Vibe’ edition which had some impressively shit graphics. More of this sort of thing.
 
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The red car isn't a Porsche. It's a much rarer Matra Murena. They were made from parts from mainly Peugeot Citroen group. They were three seater with the three seats in a single row. They were slow and underpowered. Generally a poor car all round. Their main advantage was that they were plastic.
Matra. Never knowingly out-weirded by Citroen. Guy across the road from me has an Avantime and it's just weird. Like someone watched that episode of The Simpsons where Homer designs a car and thought "What if we did that, but made it halfway aerodynamic?"
 
A couple of nice spots today. The first was a Lotus Elan which I managed to miss completely as it sped past.

Secondly, I was finally able to get a shot of the Stag that appeared ages back and then vanished - today it seems to have returned, and I think with a brand new roof.triumph_stag.jpg

Also saw what I think is a very aged Volvo "Amazon" (as far as wikipedia calls it) near a mate's house. Said mate often sees the car bozzing around, and the owner was doing some cleaning on it this afternoon, hence the open door. Despite the missing trim, the car was otherwise fairly spotless, if well worn. Not sure if the Westfalia behind it belonged to the same owner though but nice to see them together.
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A propos the black plates in Portugal, IIRC, it was changed round about 1992.
& some older vehicles have had the black plates replaced, perhaps as a way of making the car look newer (I’ve seen white ones with dates like 84 on them).

When did black plates stop in the U.K., very early 70s? Older cars can keep them as some sort of grandfather right, though I’ve definitely seen a few on newer ones that shouldn’t be there and are probably illegal.
 
& some older vehicles have had the black plates replaced, perhaps as a way of making the car look newer (I’ve seen white ones with dates like 84 on them).

When did black plates stop in the U.K., very early 70s? Older cars can keep them as some sort of grandfather right, though I’ve definitely seen a few on newer ones that shouldn’t be there and are probably illegal.
According to DVLA it was 1973. There's a website which covers the history of number plates.
 
& some older vehicles have had the black plates replaced, perhaps as a way of making the car look newer (I’ve seen white ones with dates like 84 on them).

When did black plates stop in the U.K., very early 70s? Older cars can keep them as some sort of grandfather right, though I’ve definitely seen a few on newer ones that shouldn’t be there and are probably illegal.

Funnily enough, this came up on a bus forum a week or so back.

According to Wikipedia, "retroreflective plates were specified in British Standard BS AU 145 in 1967. These were white on the front and yellow on the rear of the vehicle, with black characters. White/yellow retro-reflective plates became a legal requirement for most newly-registered vehicles on 1 January 1973"

there had been a few experiments allowing reflective plates a year or so before that, involving (possibly among others) Thames Valley (bus company) double deck coaches that did the Reading - London limited stop service - the buses carried some sort of letter from the ministry of transport in case plod asked awkward questions.

This means that vehicles new between 1967-ish and 31.12.72 could carry either reflective or white on black plates.

For replacement plates, the general rule is that older vehicles may have newer style plates fitted, but newer vehicles can't have older style.

However, white on black plates were allowed on buses (not coaches) until about the mid 80s, as in

 
Thinking of number plates, the first ones I had where VHT 149 this was the white on black, and CNU 87B which was the white/yellow. I also had 16 NML, DJV 70C, 789 GAL. I wish I'd still got these. The earliest I remember was HRH 188 on one of my father's cars.
 
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