Hi there, I'm brand new to this site and was hoping to get a little bit of help regarding registering my car. I bought a old scruffy locost that had been stripped down, and now i'm in the process of building it up new again. The reg that was sold with it is on a q-plate registered in 1998, however it is still under the make and model of the donar vehicle (Ford escort) on the logbook, however it does state sports/convertible? is this legal? I'm more thinking about when I insure it and any complications that might arise....... or is it possible to change the make and model of the logbook somehow? Any advice would be very much appreciated. Thanks.

It's a cheat and if you get stopped it will be hard to explain, it should be IVA'd to make it legal.

Hi and welcome.
Do you know if your locost was ever on the road? 1998 was pre SVA so the registration process was different to now, however a car should still have had the name changed if it was registered correctly. I seem to remember that the first locost book was published in 1996 and there would have been a fairly low number of cars on the road by 1998.

As it stands if it is the log book for your car, then it is incorrectly registered. DVLA had an amnesty a few years back but that has finished. If you have photos of your car on the road with that registration they may correctly register it, but there is no guarantee. There was someone on here did that a while ago but it was a long process.

If it has not previously been on the road then my gut feeling would be that the log book is from a different kit car which has been scrapped. It is odd that something will have been registered on a Q without the vehicle name being changed. Any way using another car's identity is called ringing and is generally frowned upon, as well as being illegal.

If you have pictures of the car when it was on the road someone on here may recognise it.

David

In what other instance would it be given a q-plate if it hasn't been given an SVI? As before I bought it i'm assuming the previous owner had the locost on the road with this reg, but I don't know how he would have obtained this reg being sports/convertible, q-plated, but still ford escort.....

quote:

---

Originally posted by designer
It's a cheat and if you get stopped it will be hard to explain, it should be IVA'd to make it legal.

---

and no, I have no pictures of it on the road, just bought it as a stripped down car in parts with this odd reg.

and it all seems to be a bit of a grey area, there seems to be no sva on any record for the reg, but I rang up VOSA and they said it's fine and legal as it's correctly registerd, but dvla said not legal as it's not the right model on the logbook.

quote:

---

bought it as a stripped down car in parts with this odd reg.

---

IIRC SVA was introduced in a reduce form from 1/1/1998, and was fully introduced in 1999, so if yours was registered in 98 is should have atleast passed the 'introductory' SVA.



[Edited on 16/4/12 by loggyboy]

^ maybe! stick the reg number into the askmid website and see what it comes back as
www.askmid.com

Did you get any other paperwork with the car? Old tax discs or MOT certificates will be useful in any discussions you have with DVLA. If you do IVA it take photos of you building the car up again, this will be needed for the IVA application

quote:

---

Originally posted by blakep82
^ maybe! stick the reg number into the askmid website and see what it comes back as
www.askmid.com

---

yes, my gut feeling was that this reg is not originally from this car, hence why I sought other opinions, as there is no other paperwork, and tbh some of the work on the chassis was not in my opinion SVI road worthy by any means. Oh well. As I said i'm building it up from scratch anyway, i've already made modifications to the chassis, re-done the aluminium side panels, made new peddle box and steering set up and have sourced and reconditioned a new engine and made new mounts and put engine and box in situ, so safest way will be to get an SVI for piece of mind, i'm just not a big fan of the cost! In regards to the chassis number, i've had a good look through the SVI manual, and it states that a VIN plate needs to be present and in the right place, however as this chassis is home-built, where do I source a number from if not using the one associated to this dodgy reg?

Info retrieved from directgov vehicle enquiry:

Date of Liability 01 04 2013
Date of First Registration 14 07 1998
Year of Manufacture 1998
Cylinder Capacity (cc) 1998cc
CO2 Emissions Not Available
Fuel Type PETROL
Export Marker N
Vehicle Status SORN Not Due
Vehicle Colour BLUE
Vehicle Type Approval Not Available
Vehicle Excise Duty rate for vehicle
6 Months Rate £121.00
12 Months Rate £220.00

SVA was introduced in 1998 but was not fully mandatory untill 2000 - if you could prove that a kit was purchased/started before 1998 and you were able to complete it and present to the DVLA before 1.1.2000 then you were allowed to go through the pre-SVA procedures (which basically meant presenting the car to the DVLA with no input from VOSA).

Many pre-SVA registered kit cars ended up with Q plates and/or logbooks with the donor's details on them - hence the "amnesty" that has already been mentioned.

There is still the possibility that you can get the details on the logbook changed without the need for an IVA - you will need to speak to the DVLA and you are only likely to succeed if you can satisfy them that the vehicle has been legally on the road previously - old MOT's are often a good way of showing this.

I think personally i'd be more comfortable just starting again with it and do it properly, however the thought of an IVA test does give me the willys!

Any help on this matter would be a great help, i'm only just 21 years old, and have not dealt with the legalities of this type of project before. As it stands I am a competent welder and mechanic, so build quality is not overly a concern, but if there is anyone out there with past experiences of the IVA they would like to share please do! If you could tell me the type of things that people get caught out on in the test that'd be a big help so I can build accordingly instead of changing it later.

Also the plan is to get it on the road this summer, so If anyone knows the order in which to do things legally so it's fully registered on the road and the fee's involved that'd be very much appreciated. For instance, 1. build car, 2. apply for SVI £450 ect ect........

Oh, and where do i get a chassis number/vin plate for home-built chassis?

Cheers

I'd go and speak to your local DVLA office about it if I were you.
You might get lucky and they alter thr reg doc for you

The fact that the vehicle type on the V5 refers to Sports/Convertible may help you. It is obviously not registered as the donor vehicle with this description, which suggests that it has been correctly notified to DVLA as a kit-car, but with a somewhat ambiguous description. DVLA *may* accept that that is enough evidence to simply change the description - or they may not

Sounds like a somebody wasn't sure what they were doing at DVLA when they registered the car in 1998. Lets be honest, it has been registered as a sports car, hence the issue of the q plate and fresh registration date, so it isn't just a kitcar running about as an escort. I reckon dvla entered the donor vehicle details rather than locost or whatever it should be called.
What VIN is on the V5? is it an escort one or new one? No reason not to attach a plate with that number to the chassis as it should be there. Then see if DVLA will just alter he logbook, you have a strong argument that it is their mistake, and that is all.
Shoot me down in flames, but if people do major changes to their cars post SVA/IVA and do not ask to have another test, I see no reason why you cannot build the car back up and put it on the road as long as the "name" issue is sorted. But that may easier said than done

Is there no chassis number currently stamped on the chassis?

Not many 2.0ltr escorts out there, I would not worry just rebuild and use, to get a Q plate it has been through a test.

There are plenty of spartans, cobra's etc that all run as Triumph heralds and the only bit that remains is the front wheel upright and hub.

Just make sure its insured correctly.

Mine started as a Reliant Kitten, its now a 2 seat sports Kitten + I kept the original plate

Don't be too quick flaming him and claiming all sorts of doom and gloom.

Around this time the SVA was just being thought about and certainly before this there was no central organisation regarding kitcars (Bit like that now at times)

All examinations of vehicles that had been substantially changed were dealt with by local vehicle examiners and what they said or did was it !

They dealt with the paperwork directly themselves. I had mine SVA'd in 1999 and was one of the first batch so to speak, even so I still had an examiner come out to me and talk over the vehicle. He issued the logbook directly and gave me the donor reg number. He also allowed me to keep the MAC certificate, later on they took the certificate at time of reg from other SVA passes.

Even now a check of my vehicle reg sometimes throws up the donor Escort but as Sports Convertible just the same, I have to request a second check. This usually somehow causes a correct ID as Locost 7.

My first kit, a formula 27 was registered as a Ford Corina 2.0 Sport on the logbook and had a non Q registration.

I missed the amnesty and didn't want to SVA it so I sold it on and made it someone elses problem!

According to askMID it is not currently insured, boohoo it may have died!

My last one A GTS Panther is still showing as insured though