De Lorean EuroTec

As we all know, once the car reaches 40yrs old you can apply for classic status making the car tax and MOT exempt. Ive looked into it and you have to notify the DVLA of this and send off a small fee (obviously. About £55 iirc as an admin fee ). You cant just stop paying the road tax and stop taking it for a yearly MOT. Some here may still have to obtain an MOT depending on whether theyve changed the engine or done major work to the chassis. Then again, how would they ever know? Its not like its recorded at the MOT or anything. But I digress...

As many of our cars are put on a 'W' plate that would mean a 1980 build so therefore the car is 40 this year (but looking at the .gov site it wont be exempt till the start of next year as it lists cars in 79 as being exempt. It also is going by months too so looks like you would have to wait till october if like mine but then again, the DVLA have classed it as a Jan 1st car ). My question is will the DVLA recognise the car as 40 or 39? My car being an Oct 81 officially is 40 next year but the DVLA decided (even with having pictures of the VIN plate) that its 40 this year.

On my V5 it states a manufacturing date of 01/01/1981. God they are confusing. Its an 81 so lets give it an 80 plate, cue another . If thats the case, then i would need to wait till 01/01/2022 to declare it as classic.

I dont know if you have to send off a picture of the VIN again? Im guessing you dont as they seem to only want the fee and the V5 log book.

Some info here: https://www.gov.uk/historic-vehicles

Mine is on the V5 as being first registered on 10th January 1981, despite not being built until late November of that year. On a W plate like yours. I don't have any reference to manufacturing date beyond (DCL/D MANUF 1981) in section 10.

I wasn't expecting to get out of the annual MOT/Tax faff until next year, if anyone manages it this year post it here!!

A suffix W plate runs from August 1980 to July 1981. Most DeLoreans which are put on a W plate are recorded as Jan 81.

So no, no free tax/MOT exception until next year.

I looked into this last year, and from the wording on the government website (at least at the time I read it), it seemed to intimate that a qualifying 40+yr old vehicle to be regsitered as a classic vehicle has to be 40yrs old at the beginning of the year when the regsitration to make it TAX and MOT exempt is made by the owner. So in my case, with a May '81 build date, although it turns 40 in May 2021, because it's not 40yrs old on January 1st 2021, then I'd have to wait until January 1st 2022 before I could claim the classic status. That's my undetrstanding, but i'd be overjoyed for someone to tell me that my understanding is not correct. yipppeeee and all that.

My V5 is a bit confused because it says first regsitered in 2002 (the year it came back to the UK presumably) but also has a "declared manufactured" as 1981. So i'm no matter which way it is; i'm going to have fun with the DVLA trying to convince them that a DMC-12 is 40yrs old and not 20yrs old!

It’s total bollox, I’ve just had the same thing with mk1 Escort. Went into my Post Office to ask, you don’t do anything or pay anything. You just carry on as before, but tax it without payment & don’t bother having an mot. Simple as

Some good news from all this...... There will be no MOT tests for 6 months, starting on the 30th March. Not only that, but everyone with a current MOT actually gets 6 months extra on top of their current expiry date. So it would seem that for some people, you could have already had your last test, the way I work it out...?
Either way, anyone who has a current valid MOT will be able to use the car until the end of September as a minimum, and probably November/December in most cases (6 months from the peak month of May). Then in theory, I believe you could take it off the road until January and get off scot-free....? Not me, as I'm registered as a December 1981 build date according to the DVLA, but anyone pre-Jan 1981 could have done it...?
Certainly it's my belief that most of us will have missed a test and I'm predicting very few MOTd cars either this December or next December.

Mine is registered as Jan 81, so guessing will have to wait till Jan 22

Dan 6511 wrote:Mine is registered as Jan 81, so guessing will have to wait till Jan 22

I'd just call dvla and get them to confirm, or you may finish up paying tax for a year where you don't have to.

On the V5 mine is also registered as a jan 81. As far as i can work out, it means it wont be tax exempt till jan 2022. Then again, the dvla could very well change "the rules" between now and then anyway so what do I know?

Doesn’t it go on the build date on the vin plate?