Practically Classics Forum

If you've been issued with an age-related plate then there shouldn't be a problem with imports or ex-military vehicles.

Martin Evans wrote:
... At present, so far as officialdom is concerned, my MGB GT V8 is no different from a clapped out pre 2001 car, of over 1549cc and is subjected to the same punitive rate of duty.

And the reason I bought a L reg Disco, instead of something a little later as a daily driver...
The "Punitive" >1549cc rate is a hell of a lot cheaper than the "Green" emissions based version for a vehicle like that.
Now I'm all for encouraging people to be as parsimonious with fuel as possible, but considering the tax rate on fuel at the moment, the users of vehicles that return less to the gallon are paying more than those with super low consumption vehicles.

When The revised car Tax means that the series 3 is exempt, yes It'll be an incentive to get it MOT'd and back on the road. With a fuel consumption hovering at 20mpg (low compression 6 cylinder engine, that can run on the sort of fuels found in jerry cans in the back of beyond in sub saharan Africa) it won't be the daily ride doing 40 miles a day across Birmingham to work.

Trouble is with the green movement is that it has been infested not with sensible types who are looking to improve engineering and build better, but by the overpaid chatterati of the second oldest profession (Marketing). Therefore any sensible discourse on this, backed by proper figures is somewhat difficult at times

suffolkpete wrote:If you've been issued with an age-related plate then there shouldn't be a problem with imports or ex-military vehicles.

Has been a problem in the past with ex-mil Landrovers. They may have been manufactured in say the mid 70's but when cast in the 80's more than a few got the plate de jour when re-registered as civvy with VOSA. I've seen a few Y reg Lightweights for instance

SirTainleyBarking wrote:
Has been a problem in the past with ex-mil Landrovers. They may have been manufactured in say the mid 70's but when cast in the 80's more than a few got the plate de jour when re-registered as civvy with VOSA. I've seen a few Y reg Lightweights for instance

That used to be standard practice with all first registrations up to about 1983, after that they would have got an age related plate or a Q plate.

as my cousin always used to say road tax & insurance doesnt make it go any better... the coppers didnt agree

Just going back to the original question, this change should happen automatically. There ought to be no need to 'apply' for it or to change the taxation class yourself. That is what happened when the Histroic class was originally introduced and has been the case ever since as far as I know.

About three years ago I resurrected an old '72 Honda PC50 moped that had not been on the road for many years (pre Sorn). Rather than spend some hours queuing etc at the local DVLA office I simply paid the required tax according to the existing V5 I had (as it was still on a non-historic class and the tax was only £15). A week or two later I got a nice letter from the DVLA saying that as it was now a historic vehicle here's a cheque for the £15 you needn't have paid and a little while later a new V5C came in the post with the class now shown as historic.

If you have a car that becomes tax exempt at some point in the year that you have paid for a disc then you should automatically get a refund in the post for the remaining months (and a new V5C) soon after the change.