Prefix Number Plates

Before the

Current Style

came into being, the way in which we, in Great Britain, were able to identify the age of a vehicle was by the prefix it was given. The first

prefix registration

was the A prefix which was issued on August 1st 1983. A car bearing this

registration mark

will have been first registered on or after August 1st 1983. The sequence followed in alphabetical order (excluding letters I, O, Q and Z because none of them, with the exception of letter O, were used in British registrations). So it follows that an S prefix would indicate that the vehicle was first registered on or after August 1st 1998. With a

prefix number plate

, the year-identifying letter prefixes the

registration mark

eg: H12 ABC (the letter H is the prefix and indicates that the vehicle was first registered on or after August 1st 1990).

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