Mystery car pix

fintail

Does NJ have year of manufacture plates?

One of the cool things about having an old car here - find correct plates from when the car was made, re-register at it at the DMV/DOL, and the plates are "permanent" (states this on the fintail's registration) - no need to renew, no fees.

stickguy

no YOM plates. Though sometimes you see older style ones (they would change colors every few years for a while, so if you just kept your old ones you could tell roughly when they got them. But not if they were original to the car.

magnette

I've often wondered how you can get any history for your cars if they get new plates periodically and if you buy a car the previous owner presumably returns or keeps the previous plates?
Or is that only where you change jurisdiction? - ie you buy a car from Nevada and you live four miles away but over the border in Arizona - or a bit further - like Maine...

It is different here as unless someone chooses to personalise their number basically when you buy a car the plate comes with it - my MG has original plates from Jan 1955 and when I inherited it in 1977 from my grandfather, he was the sixth owner according to the registration document - so I became the seventh.

My car was originally registered in Gloucestershire and in fact the guy my grandfather had bought it from was living there as well but my grandfather had to send the log book - pre computer - back to his local tax office in Glamorgan Wales and they sent it back stamped to transfer it from Gloucestershire to Glamorganshire.

When I got the car I had to fill in a form and they transferred it to me - I lived in Glamorgan too at the time - but when we got a national computer registration system (DVLA) a few years later I had to send off the old log book and they returned it and gave me a new computer print out which is still valid as it covers all ofEngland Wales or Scotland - the rules are different in Northern Ireland though.

I've lived in several counties or boroughs around London since getting the MG but it is still all on the one log book and in fact I have most of the previous owners details as well although it is sketchy around the early sixties as there was a lost book between two Gloucestershire owners so it was replaced (but still retaining the same number for the plates) somewhere back then.

When we all went to the national system if you had a car laid sup in a barn or something then it got wiped off the computer and if you dug it out years later you had to re-register it although there is a process to retain even a really old number in some cases - but if you buy a car from Joe, and he retains JOE 123 as his plate or something then you have to get some less desirable one from the DVLA - you might become XYX 234A or something.

It does mean that whoever has the MG it is still on that original plate unless they want to put a personal plate on it so I imagine it will still be on it until I no longer have it - it was issued 65 years ago...

stickguy

the rules vary by state. There is no national system for car registrations. In NJ, the plates are registered to the owner. If you get a new car you can keep your old plates and change the registration over. Otherwise you just turn them back in to the DMV. But they never go to the new owner.

Michaell

stickguy said:

the rules vary by state. There is no national system for car registrations. In NJ, the plates are registered to the owner. If you get a new car you can keep your old plates and change the registration over. Otherwise you just turn them back in to the DMV. But they never go to the new owner.

Colorado is like NJ - my wife has had the same set of (custom) plates on her last 4 cars.

In California, however, the plates stay with the vehicle.

magnette

I can see its difficult as that system is based on the plate being temporary rather than ours which was once just a single system for GB but organised at County level.

It went haywire really here when we got number plates which are age related in the early 60's as people wanted to get rid of the stigma of older plates on their cars but I must admit I really like the fact that old cars can literally carry records for a century in some cases.

magnette

Two of a kind



PS - they are not actually British

tjc78

stickguy said:

no YOM plates. Though sometimes you see older style ones (they would change colors every few years for a while, so if you just kept your old ones you could tell roughly when they got them. But not if they were original to the car.

You hardly ever see the blue plates from the 80s anymore. Funny how NJ was yellow, then blue for a while and then changed back to yellow in 93 or so I guess.

You can tell the early 90s plates because they had a two digit prefix and then four digits after. Then they went back to 3/3.

magnette

This picture posted with Firefox but I can't get back in with Firefox as it won't let me so I am using Safari to see it -I haven't used Firefox for a while and I think it has been updated in the meantime so it has screwed up my password for getting into Edmunds - I can do that via Safari but for some reason it only allows me via Firefox if I sign in via Google now, which is a different password and of course that means coming out of firefox and back not safari.

Wasn't it easier before these adding machines got pictures?

I

Lostwrench3

I am still using the same plates issued to me in 1977.
Over time, they have been used on 8 of my cars.

magnette

Lostwrench3 said:

I am still using the same plates issued to me in 1977.
Over time, they have been used on 8 of my cars.

That's nice though - it gives you some continuity.

The other way round it's great to see my late mum's old car driving round or one of my old cars that I haven't seen for a long time

tjc78

Lostwrench3 said:

I am still using the same plates issued to me in 1977.
Over time, they have been used on 8 of my cars.

I’ve had so many different plates I can’t even remember them all. When you lease with a different leasing company you get a new plate every time.

When I leased Enclave 2 since it was the same leasing company they actually transferred my plates.

magnette

I had company cars for about twelve years - and apart from the last one - I still remember the plates but never saw the cars again - I suppose the firm were leasing them but didn't really get involved with those. I wouldn't mind seeing the last one again as it was actually stolen ....

magnette

As I can post pictures again here's another although no mystery as it says it all on the van really

If the first one broke down I'm not sure how good the tow truck was - it's incredible a few years later they were selling the AC Cobra

magnette

And while we are at it

Three of a kind - you knew these by other names over there I think

ab348

magnette said:

As I can post pictures again here's another although no mystery as it says it all on the van really

If the first one broke down I'm not sure how good the tow truck was - it's incredible a few years later they were selling the AC Cobra

Are those Invacars?

ab348

magnette said:

Two of a kind



PS - they are not actually British

Austin Kimberly and Tasman, built by Leyland Australia. I believe they were 6-cyl front-drivers?

magnette

Yes - they were derived from the old Austin / Morris 1800 but instead of the 1798cc 4 cyl motor they got a 2200cc one - the model was known in Australia as the X6 project and the engine was later assembled in UK for the Austin / Morris 2200 and the related Wolseley Six.

They sold them also as a Morris Tasman in NZ - not sure if that was also an Austin there or perhaps a Morris Kimberly but it sounds like a dealer issue

Introduced 1970 and off sale by about 1974 in the wake of the general malaise affecting all of BL's Australian products ...

magnette

If the first one broke down I'm not sure how good the tow truck was - it's incredible a few years later they were selling the AC Cobra



Are those Invacars?

Same people but this was an AC Petite - they made it as a car and a few vans were made at the same time. AC did make the Invacar and various related models - one was the AC Acedes - and over the period from about 1952 to 1973 they made about 4000 cars for the Health Service to give to disabled people on various schemes -terribly unstable cars though.

The actual Petite in this picture is the one sold as a regular car with no disability adapted controls sold as a competitor to the Reliant and the various bubble cars etc we had in the 50's but they weren't a great success. There is an owners club for them and about ten or more are stilling circulation - unlike the disability ones where no one would insure them following their withdrawal I understand.

fintail

This is another realm where Murka is a muddled mess. Some states have the plate stay with the car (I know it is this way on the west coast). Some keep it with the owner. So the answer is "maybe". Although I think here, special plates stay with the owner and not the car. So maybe it is "it depends".

There are also plenty of "special" plates, with small fees going to benefit certain groups - so each year I could change my plate - get a square dancing plate, then a HAM radio plate, then a wildlife preservation plate etc. Or I could mix it up and get one of those every other year, and a new standard plate in-between. Over a 10 year period a car could have 5 different standard plates and 5 different special plates.

magnette said:

I've often wondered how you can get any history for your cars if they get new plates periodically and if you buy a car the previous owner presumably returns or keeps the previous plates?
Or is that only where you change jurisdiction? - ie you buy a car from Nevada and you live four miles away but over the border in Arizona - or a bit further - like Maine...

fintail

Looks like odd (South American?) variants of the Hillman Avenger. The VW one has to be Brazilian or something.

We got it for a short time here as the Plymouth Cricket.

magnette said:

And while we are at it

Three of a kind - you knew these by other names over there I think

ab348

This is from Glace Bay in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia in the early 1960s. That was apparently a newly-opened supermarket. The sign company made out like a bandit with those individual letter box signs. Right-click should expand.

fintail

No 60 Fords, so I will pick off something 2nd from far right, which appears to be a Vauxhall PA Cresta (or Velox). 61 Chevy wagon backed in beside it.

imidazol97

ab348 said:

This is from Glace Bay in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia in the early 1960s. That was apparently a newly-opened supermarket. The sign company made out like a bandit with those individual letter box signs. Right-click should expand.

When I right click on this picture, I get a new tab in Chrome, but the area of the picture is 1/4 of the original. Clicking on the Plus sign to expand that enlarges it to about 28% area of the original.

Anyone else having this?

kyfdx

imidazol97 said:

ab348 said:

This is from Glace Bay in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia in the early 1960s. That was apparently a newly-opened supermarket. The sign company made out like a bandit with those individual letter box signs. Right-click should expand.

When I right click on this picture, I get a new tab in Chrome, but the area of the picture is 1/4 of the original. Clicking on the Plus sign to expand that enlarges it to about 28% area of the original.

Anyone else having this?

Windows/Chrome... new tab with full screen

stickguy

when the picture is too small in chrome, should get a bar at the side and bottom to move it around.

stickguy

a couple 1960 chevy tails, and a truly ugly black Ford wagon.

imidazol97

IT looks like most of the vehicles are low line models.

tmart

58 Ford Customline at left and the 58 Ford wagon at right.

ab348

imidazol97 said:

IT looks like most of the vehicles are low line models.

Typical of this part of Canada generally and Cape Breton in particular - that was an area with coal mines, a steel mill, and a fishing industry, none of which paid well, and lots of unemployment.

fintail

Also makes me think of what I call "Quebec syndrome" - if the winters are going to turn a new car into a rusted hulk in 5 years, no point in getting the fancy model as it will decay just as fast as a cheaper one.

magnette

fintail said:

Looks like odd (South American?) variants of the Hillman Avenger. The VW one has to be Brazilian or something.

We got it for a short time here as the Plymouth Cricket.


Yes, the Plymouth Cricket - known here as the Hillman Avenger, built in Scotland, then as Hillman went, it became the Chrysler Avenger, and then the Talbot Avenger.

However it had a varied life in South America, the first of these three is a Dodge 1500 from Argentina made from 1971 to about 1980 I think

Chrysler International got bought out by Volkswagen in 1980 - they were already owners of just under 50% of the business - and the second car is a Volkswagen 1500 made until 1982 - the other - traditional VW 1500 was also sold there but had been phased out by that time I think.

Meanwhile in Brazil a 2-door only version of the car was made from 1972 to 1981 - they remodelled the rear end and the third picture is one of those - but in Brazil this car was a Dodge Polara - a name familiar to you all for a somewhat bigger car.

Meanwhile in Denmark and some other markets it was the Sunbeam Avenger assembled there from kits - only in two door form, and when Britain stopped building the 2 door we imported the Danish 2 door cars again as Hillmans - then Chryslers etc ....

It was also the Dodge Avenger in South Africa there was a special model in New Zealand as a Hillman bt with a different wagon /van body from the UK estate car, and in Uruguay there was another pickup - a Dodge one with yet another shape.

Finally it was assembled in Iran, before they start building the Hillman Arrow / Hunter as the Paykan but the Avenger was only in their market for a few years.

Not bad considering it wasn't a particularly good car to start with...

magnette

When I right click on this picture, I get a new tab in Chrome, but the area of the picture is 1/4 of the original. Clicking on the Plus sign to expand that enlarges it to about 28% area of the original.

Anyone else having this?

When I click in Safari I get a picture about three times the size of the one posted...

I see the Vauxhall PA, just between a 1960 Chevrolet estate and a 56 or so Chrysler I think.

Very badly dented Chevrolet to extreme left below first S on sign

ab348

If you expand the picture and look at the newish Pontiac sedan near the entrance, you can see an example of the “narrow-track” Pontiacs built by GM Canada on Chevy chassis. The wheels don’t fill the wheel wells quite like the wide-track American Pontiacs.

imidazol97

I'm trying a new browser called Brave.

When I right click, I get a new tab. When I look there, I have an enlarged image, and I have
a plus sign on the cursor which I click and get an even larger picture. Must be something wrong
with my Chrome.

BTW this browser doesn't load any ads, so it's really quick.

magnette

imidazol97 said:

I'm trying a new browser called Brave.

When I right click, I get a new tab. When I look there, I have an enlarged image, and I have
a plus sign on the cursor which I click and get an even larger picture. Must be something wrong
with my Chrome.

BTW this browser doesn't load any ads, so it's really quick.

Thanks - I may try Brave although Firefox updated over the weekend and seems to be a bit better too

I find using Safari I get that option to expand it further - with some pictures I can read the licence plates and badges. It just doesn't let me post from Safari

By the way I looked up Crossroads of America - Wikipedia suggests you are in the vicinity of Vandalia Indiana - I was intrigued...

kyfdx

magnette said:

imidazol97 said:

I'm trying a new browser called Brave.

When I right click, I get a new tab. When I look there, I have an enlarged image, and I have
a plus sign on the cursor which I click and get an even larger picture. Must be something wrong
with my Chrome.

BTW this browser doesn't load any ads, so it's really quick.

Thanks - I may try Brave although Firefox updated over the weekend and seems to be a bit better too

I find using Safari I get that option to expand it further - with some pictures I can read the licence plates and badges. It just doesn't let me post from Safari

By the way I looked up Crossroads of America - Wikipedia suggests you are in the vicinity of Vandalia Indiana - I was intrigued...

Vandalia, OHIO

magnette

Sorry whoops - OHIO !

I once stayed in a hotel which was called the Centre of Britain hotel, and it was four miles south of Hadrians Wall which is the Roman boundary between England and the Scots.

On a map if you took account of the top of Scotland and their islands this place was half way between there and the South coast of England - and about two hundred miles above the Midlands ..

I appreciate the difference is there is a lot more of everywhere in America - you all drive for miles everywhere while here you are never more than about 70 miles from a coast anywhere. Mind, our roads make everywhere feel a long way some times.

imidazol97

Originally had that nickname because US 25 north and south went through there from Michigan, to Cincinnati and not far from where @kyfdx lives in N. Kentucky, to Florida. US 40 went east and west from San Francisco to Atlantic City New Jersey. US 40 was named National Road. Wiki says I80 replaced US40 and that's not right. I70 replaced US40. I80 runs closer to the Lincoln Highway which is US 20 or OH 20 through northern Ohio.

Now I75 goes north and south from upper Michigan to lower Florida and I70 goes east and west, crossing about 1.5 miles from where the original roads crossed.

magnette

It's amazing how the whole of a road network can be centred on a junction really

In Britain our motorway network is really a few lines going north and three or four going west or south from London and a load of links between them so the main hub is where the two South to North roads meet across Birmingham - about five motorways and a couple of trunk roads join or intersect over a space of about three miles. Its called Gravelly Hill interchange but everyone calls it Spaghetti Junction as that is what the press nicknamed it when it was built.

Funny thing is it is also the hub for our 18th - 19th century canal network - directly below the roads in some cases -as joins up - must be the underlying geography I suppose.

On our pre motorway network the highways are in part still based on roads built by the Romans -not the actual roads but the routes they followed - and I saw a programme on TV last year showing a marker - it was a sort of stone memorial - erected at the point where two of the Roman roads crossed in the midlands - one going from London to Chester and the other from Exeter up to York where those two roads mark a sort of X right cross the country

sadly the marker was in someones garden as the actual roads were diverted to make a roundabout in the seventies so it was now a forgotten relic, after being marked for about two hundred years

omarman

1985 at "Port Columbus," now John Glenn.

fintail

Looks like an 80 Pinto behind an 82-83 Cavalier wagon.

omarman

I actually got a Cavalier wagon rental at the airport once and wasn't too happy at first. But it really wasn't a bad rental/commuter appliance. I expected worse.

fintail

I've always thought those wagons looked decent, nice angular styling. The quad light facelift didn't hurt.

Lostwrench3

The USAF flew a similar aircraft, the ...........

stickguy

Cavalier sedan behind the pinto. And 2 over looks like a corolla. Fuzzy picture. Can’t blow it up on my iPad.

Nice custom econoline with the picture windows! Bet that has shag carpet and a velour couch inside.

magnette

Lostwrench3 said:

The USAF flew a similar aircraft, the ...........

XB70 Valkyrie

magnette

I still miss seeing the old Concorde - we used to see it over the house fairly often although it was more common for it to go over South London on its way into Heathrow so it was more often that we just heard it.

One of the few cases of something which was possible then but isn't now - in the sense that anyone with enough money could fly on it, your didn't need to be a jet pilot or astronaut and it was technically unsurpassed in it's role even after it retired although environmentally it was a different matter I suppose.

Quite small inside though - there is one of the development aircraft displayed at Duxford museum just south of Cambridge and you can get into it - the fuselage diameter is really quite small even compared with the later single aisle jets.

Lostwrench3

Correct, magnette, the XB70 Valkyrie.

magnette

Lostwrench3 said:

Correct, magnette, the XB70 Valkyrie.

I think they lost one of the (2) prototypes when it collided with an F4 chase plane during testing