Are all TVR's with reg. "PN......" factory registerd cars?

[brogenville]

As the title says, if a TVR has a registration mark "PNxxxxx", does that mean that is has to have been registed by the factory, or were there any other local TVR main dealers that were registering cars with the PN prefix?

[Roop]

Possibly Ciceley in Preston or at a push HL Gorner in Wigan.

[mike.williams]

http://waxxtm.com/registrations.html

According to this link PN is Preston, so as last post, there are other outlets that could bear that reg.

[julianc]

Our Tamora is 'PN...' and was registered by the factory as we bought her directly from there (living only 10 miles away).

However, as others have said, Ciceley was in the middle of Preston and would probably have issued 'PN...' as well.

[JonRB]

Oh that's interesting. My Sagaris was on a PN plate when I bought it.

[V8 GRF]

With the DVLA being big into personalised numbers these days the locality identifier is less relevant but with the old system this is the case.

Pre 1999 cars
Preston DVLA office (15 miles from Blackpool) issued different identifiers with CK, BV, CW, EC, EO, FR, FV, HG, RN and that is where the majority of the numbers would be issued.

PN is actually Brighton so not likely to be a common factory number pre 1999

Famous factory cars like the Cerbera Speed 12 are W112 BHG, the crushed prototype Griff was F596 ACK, Neil Anderson's development Griff was J524 MHG and John Ravenscroft's Griff dev car is L110 BFV

Post 1999

The system changed and Preston office issued numbers consisting of P followed by any of these A B C D E F G H J K L M N O P R S T
Carlisle also issues P followed by U V W X Y

So any number starting with P is likely to have been registerd in this area.

So the orange Typhon recently pictured here is AF04 BYZ is registed not from the Preston office but Peterborough for some reason (was that where the car was going before NS didn't sell it?)

[brogenville]

Interesting stuff. Speaking of special tvr's, the first t440 (the red one that eventually got painted up in de walt colors to go racing, or so I'm told) was registered PN02ZNG. This would obviously have been a factory registered car. So, given that my car is PN02ZNF, would you say it's fair to assume that it too is a factory registered car, as it has an exactly consecutive registration mark?

[JonRB]

My car was PN05 ??? (I'd rather not publish the full reg thanks) when I bought it.

Since it has had 2 former keepers I don't know where it was first registered or by whom.

[V8 GRF]

Going on the info above it would appear that you can assume it's registration was issued by the Preston DVLA office which makes it likely it was first registered by the factory or local dealers such as Cicely or maybe HL Gorners.

[glow worm]

JonRB said:

My car was PN05 ??? (I'd rather not publish the full reg thanks) when I bought it.

Since it has had 2 former keepers I don't know where it was first registered or by whom.

Couldn't have been Ciceley, they didn't become TVR dealers until April 2006... so they couldn't have registered PN05 XXX

[brogenville]

Interesting stuff. Speaking of special tvr's, the first t440 (the red one that eventually got painted up in de walt colors to go racing, or so I'm told) was registered PN02ZNG. This would obviously have been a factory registered car. So, given that my car is PN02ZNF, would you say it's fair to assume that it too is a factory registered car, as it has an exactly consecutive registration mark?

[glow worm]

glow worm said:

JonRB said:

My car was PN05 ??? (I'd rather not publish the full reg thanks) when I bought it.

Since it has had 2 former keepers I don't know where it was first registered or by whom.

Couldn't have been Ciceley, they didn't become TVR dealers until April 2006... so they couldn't have registered PN05 XXX

Just checked... HL Gorner had a new Lazer Blue Sag with Black hide and blue stitching,blue roof trim, black carbon seats in May 2005 at £53,600 (I know the reg if you wish to know PN05 XXX and in Jan 2005 at £49,950 (reduced from above price) 2000 miles, guess it was a demonstrator. Don't know if that's the same car ???

[nwarnes]

My Tamora and a Tuscan I know of with PN04 reg were both from HL Gorner Wigan.

[Blown2CV]

V8 GRF said:

With the DVLA being big into personalised numbers these days the locality identifier is less relevant but with the old system this is the case.

Pre 1999 cars
Preston DVLA office (15 miles from Blackpool) issued different identifiers with CK, BV, CW, EC, EO, FR, FV, HG, RN and that is where the majority of the numbers would be issued.

PN is actually Brighton so not likely to be a common factory number pre 1999

Famous factory cars like the Cerbera Speed 12 are W112 BHG, the crushed prototype Griff was F596 ACK, Neil Anderson's development Griff was J524 MHG and John Ravenscroft's Griff dev car is L110 BFV

Post 1999

The system changed and Preston office issued numbers consisting of P followed by any of these A B C D E F G H J K L M N O P R S T
Carlisle also issues P followed by U V W X Y

So any number starting with P is likely to have been registerd in this area.

So the orange Typhon recently pictured here is AF04 BYZ is registed not from the Preston office but Peterborough for some reason (was that where the car was going before NS didn't sell it?)

Think you got the system wrong their mate. OP was talking about regs starting with PN, i.e. post 2001. The locator code in the pre-2001 regs was the letters marked L in this arrangement -> xxxx LLx. Locator in the 'new' system is the first digit i.e. P in this case. Therefore all Px xx xxx reg's were reg'd in the preston DVLA catchment area.

[V8 GRF]

Blown2CV said:

Think you got the system wrong their mate. OP was talking about regs starting with PN, i.e. post 2001. The locator code in the pre-2001 regs was the letters marked L in this arrangement -> xxxx LLx. Locator in the 'new' system is the first digit i.e. P in this case. Therefore all Px xx xxx reg's were reg'd in the preston DVLA catchment area.

Spurious info about the year being 1999 not 2001 but otherwise I'm correct.

I'm aware that the OP was talking about the current system, and as I've said in the second part of my post the registrations beginning with P and then A-T are Preston with the remainder U-Y being Carlisle.

I'm also correct in the first part of my post with the identifiers being the last two letters, so using your example xxxx xLL, if I'm wrong, as you suggest, why do all my examples of the pre 2001 cars work? I've lived 90% of my life in Preston so I'm aware of the number plates round here having owned a few myself.

Edited by V8 GRF on Saturday 10th October 16:19

[brogenville]

As ever, thanks very much for the info.

Mr Glow worm, do you have access to tvr sales history? If so, dont suppose you would be so kind as to do me a favour?

[glow worm]

brogenville said:

As ever, thanks very much for the info.

Mr Glow worm, do you have access to tvr sales history? If so, dont suppose you would be so kind as to do me a favour?

Sorry but no, I bought cars from HL Gorner and have a few of their monthly brochures.... (Mike Clark may have some of Gorners records (and I suspect Richard Pogson TrackVRoad)). PotatoMuncher has some TVR paint records ,they may include other info... I don't think TVRs own records were very accurate.

[TvrTone]

My Cerbera is the ex TVR Press car and is registered PE51...

Tony

[brogenville]

glow worm said:

brogenville said:

As ever, thanks very much for the info.

Mr Glow worm, do you have access to tvr sales history? If so, dont suppose you would be so kind as to do me a favour?

Sorry but no, I bought cars from HL Gorner and have a few of their monthly brochures.... (Mike Clark may have some of Gorners records (and I suspect Richard Pogson TrackVRoad)). PotatoMuncher has some TVR paint records ,they may include other info... I don't think TVRs own records were very accurate.

thanks anyway mate- no harm in asking I thought!