The popularity of cars has been steadily increasing, since the steam engine was replaced by the internal combustion engine in the late 19th century. At first there were merely thousands of cars on the road, but as car numbers increased into tens of thousands and more, the Government realised that some sort of tracking system was needed, to link a vehicle to its owner.

In the UK, car registrations became mandatory with the passing of the Motor Car Act in 1903. Initially registration was managed on a local level, but by 1919 the Government realised that the tens of thousands of car registrations needed to be managed by a central authority, and established a Ministry of Transport to deal with this process.

The earliest registrations that started in 1903 were dateless registrations where the first letters of the number plates were associated with the local authority. These began running out quickly, and in 1932 the second dateless system was installed with a different configuration. The 1950’s introduced another system as car registrations again ran out, but by 1965 the system had to be changed again, illustrating how the popularity of cars increased exponentially during this period.

1983 brought on the prefix system but these also ran out, and in 2001 the Government introduced the number system we use now, which is again more complex than the previous system. Currently plates consist of 2 letters followed by 2 numbers and then ending with 3 letters. The DVLA believes this new system will be sufficient until 2050.