Number Plate Discovery - ESGORCOT SPECIAL 1971

[cplyall]

On the cover of the latest Octane Magazine (#159 Sept 2016) there is an Aston Martin DB6 with the number plate VOD 144J. Before this, I'd never seen a number plate that so closely resembled the plate on my classic Marcos (VOD 119J).

It got me thinking... What other machinery shares the same VOD-J pre/post fixes? Might be a little bit odd sitting there wading through number plates, but should give an interesting snapshot of Automotive history.

Between numbers VOD 112J and VOD 140J there was a great variety, from a BSA, Triumph and Balkan motorbikes, to 2 Aston Martins, 2 Land Rovers, a Rolls Royce, VW Transporter & Beetle, various Triumphs, a Pontiac Catalina, MGB and MGB GT.

But the most interesting of all was VOD 118J...
The Autotrader Vehicle Checker (https://www.vehiclecheck.co.uk/?SC=132&vrm=vod118j) comes up with the ESGORCOT SPECIAL UNKNOWN 1971. I'd never heard of anything like it and putting the make into google recovers 0 results.

So I put it to Pistonheads... Has anybody ever heard of the Esgorcot Special? Could this have been a manufacturer or a man in a shed building his own car? Or is it simply a typo in the records...

[TooMany2cvs]

It's alive and insured...
MID has it as "SN Escargot", silver. No MOT history or engine size is coming up on a random car check site. But without knowing what make DVLA have... <shrug> One data check site has "Make: Esgarcot Special" - but DVLA's vehicle enquiry doesn't recognise that, or just "Esgarcot".

[Astacus]

Going to take a wild guess and suggest it's something based on a French car, maybe a Citroen 2CV ?

[cplyall]

Astacus said:

Going to take a wild guess and suggest it's something based on a French car, maybe a Citroen 2CV ?

That would certainly go with the snail pun...

TooMany2cvs; Nice to see its still around! Somebody may know about it then...

[Butter Face]

HPI has it as 602cc. Painted in silver in 1992 but was originally white.

It has also worn OFX258J which is shown as being on a CITROEN AMI8 which has possibly been written off.

No further as to what it actually is though....

[530dTPhil]

It does appear to be a 2CV based sports car according to the engine capacity held by DVLA.

[cplyall]

I've just googled naming cars on the V5 and it seems like you can give your own name on the V5 certificate if the majority of it was built/modified by yourself. Didn't realise you could do that... Well that opens it up to anything!