Guitar Spotting

[Uncle Fiesta]

Just watched Parts 1 and 2 on ITV Player. Never realised they had D-reg cars in 1963!

[dave robinson]

Well spotted Steve, 'D' was the 1965 suffix.

[neil2726]

I guess they have to use whats accessible and stick to a budget!

[chas]

'D' reg was 1966....

I noticed that the two guitars that the musicians at Abbey Road were using were again the same Futurama bass and Gretsch as used by most at The Cavern

What was George Martin doing the engineering - surely he didn't?
Modern mic & shock mount in the studio..
Oh well, easy to pick a few holes, but an enjoyable programme nevertheless, and Sheridan is brilliant with great vocals

[dave robinson]

'D' reg was 1966....

Yes it was Chas, I can't count.

[Billyboygretsch]

I think you will find 1965 may have been when they changed from end of year to Mid year or something. I had a Morris Oxford estate with a "c" reg later in the year "d"reg emerged. "E" reg really suffered with the number of registrations. Anyway this spotting stuff is all good fun. Gonna watch Cilla again. Real Anorak or Anarak stuff here. Keep it coming. Can anyone remember being on a tram in London. I can remember going down the Kingsway tunnel on one with my dad

[chas]

Yes, and you're almost right Bill - they went to August 1st for new registrations in 1967 so the 'E' reg only lasted 7 months. It was because dealing with high volumes (relatively) of sales and registrations right at the beginning of January with Christmas and New year holidays was a headache (or hangover? ).
Interestingly 30 odd years later they changed away from 1st August for the same reasons (summer holidays this time..)

[Uncle Fiesta]

I always thought the start of the new registration was changed from January to August, because people were seeing the new cars at the London Motor Show in October, but delaying buying them until the following January, to get the next years 'letter' rather than placing the order straight away.

[JimN]

I always thought the start of the new registration was changed from January to August, because people were seeing the new cars at the London Motor Show in October, but delaying buying them until the following January, to get the next years 'letter' rather than placing the order straight away.

I was disappointed when the Great Britain registration system was overhauled. It was an opportunity wasted. The alphabet (except for I, Q and Z) had been used twice: once as a suffix and again as a prefix. When the system was changed again, it moved from the format A111AAA to AA11AAA, still showing the vehicle's registration year.

There is so much distortion of the motor vehicle market caused by this six-monthly change, that it would be far better to have a system which does not display the registration year of the vehicle (and so does not artificially "age" it).

Two letters, two numbers and three letters - all allocated at random - would work for registration purposes and wouldn't feed the status symbol anxiety of owners.

[Gatwick1946]

Earlier this year I stopped off at a guitar dealership in Newhaven. Although I only bought a pack of strings, the guy I spoke to was a guitar enthusiast,and was happy to chat about old guitars. He showed me a room upstairs which was full of old guitars - I was interested to see several old Watkins Rapiers, as I had owned the 2 pick up version in the 1960's.The guy told me that the guitars had been restored and were often hired out to film and TV companies as props. Worth a look if you are in the area - its not a shop, but an industrial unit on the road from the ferryport to the A27 junction.

Kindest regards
Christopher