What does it mean L Reg or H Reg, etc....(cars)?

It references the plate of the car for purposes of determining age

UK Registration plates were sequentially lettered with 3 characters upto 3 numbers then a letter suffix out of

A B C D E F G H J K L M N P R S T V W X Y between 1960 and 1982, in 1983 it changed to be a prefix of those letters followed by upto three numbers and three letters to identify year of first registration between 1st August and 31st July

In 1999 this changed to be six monthly at March and September 1st for prefixes S T V X Y then moved on to the current system of two characters then a two digit year identifier and three characters the digits being 51 02 52 03 53 04 54 05 55 06 56 07 57 etc the 0 indicating a march registration 5 a sepetember one. This will change to 1 & 6 respectively in 2010

Prefix Number plates were used from the 1st August 1983 until 31st August 2001. The format used for these number plates is the prefix followed by one to three digits, followed by a space followed by three letters eg A111 AAA.

A

1/8/1983

-

31/7/1984

B

1/8/1984

-

31/7/1985

C

1/8/1985

-

31/7/1986

D

1/8/1986

-

31/7/1987

E

1/8/1987

-

31/7/1988

F

1/8/1988

-

31/7/1989

G

1/8/1989

-

31/7/1990

H

1/8/1990

-

31/7/1991

J

1/8/1991

-

31/7/1992

K

1/8/1992

-

31/7/1993

L

1/8/1993

-

31/7/1994

M

1/8/1994

-

31/7/1995

N

1/8/1995

-

31/7/1996

P

1/8/1996

-

31/7/1997

R

1/8/1997

-

31/7/1998

S

1/8/1998

-

28/2/1999

T

1/3/1999

-

31/8/1999

V

1/9/1999

-

29/2/2000

W

1/3/2000

-

31/8/2000

X

1/9/2000

-

28/2/2001

Y

1/3/2001

-

31/8/2001

Great answers guys, but not much useful information!!

Apologies to the other factual answers - when I wrote this they were all "it is the age of the car"

When car numbers were started in earnest they used 3 letters and 3 numbers e.g MCO898. Then 3 numbers and 3 letters e.g. 681JAA.

In 1963 that ran out so the numbers for that year Jan-Jan were 3 letters, up to 3 numbers and a suffix (Last letter) of A

For example TAR166A

Then the years followed on in successsion 1964 DNK652B etc but in 1967 it was decided to run the numbers spetember to september so that the "Year" 1967 ran Jan to end August eg JWN 576E. And 67/68 was Sept to Sept F

and so on

68/69 G

69/70 H

No I

JKLMNOPin turn

No Q

RST

No U

VWXY to 1982/3

At the end of all that the order was reversed so numbers ran A123ABC etc in 1984

BCDEFGH to 90

JKLMN P 97

No Q

RST

No U

VWXY

and then the new series that run 2 Letters, 2 year related numbers* 3 letters

Now we have 2 sets of year letters per calendar year e.g 02 for the first 6 months 52 for the second 6 months

Not sure what will happen when we get to the end of this. A1 again?

H reg is old..... I'd say £150 to £250. (sorry but it's old, and even my £12,000 car is now only worth £4000 after just a few years) Update: You can't go far wrong buying at that price. However ask things like when the cambelt was last changed (cause it usually costs a lot to do... and if it snaps it may ruin the engine). That said, you can't go too far wrong at that price... get em to throw in an oil and filter change so you have smooth motoring. Definately go for something Japanese cause of their reliability.

This Site Might Help You.

RE:

What does it mean L Reg or H Reg, etc....(cars)?

Some hears ago the government decided (God know why) to issue number plates that gave an indication of the year is was issued. So a plate with L or H at the front of the back of the number will give you that date. I am sure there is a site which will give the relevant dates for letters if not Glasses Guide will do. New plates have numbers instead of letters to indicate the year

Last Millennium cars had a letter in front of numbers to indicate the year of registration of the car. every 6 months it was a different letter in alphabet order. L reg I suspect is 1995 (?), H... have to look through autotrader.co.uk to calculate it ;)

H Registration Plate Year

It refers to the year the car was first registered. It's an 'old style' number plate where there is one letter at the beginning than up to three numbers, then three letters at the end.

'H' was mostly 1990 for example.

Letters 'I', 'O', 'U', and 'Z' are not used as they can look like numbers.

The letter 'Q' is used when no one can work out how old the car is!

Year the car was built and first sold G is 1990 for example. The system is far more complicated these days though...