What spell the matriculations in your country ?

Pauline · What spell the matriculations in your country ?

The cars and other vehicles here have 3 letters and 3 numbers, like this : ABC 123

Some of them spell a word and today I've seen a car who spelled : FAB !!!!!

Fab, you must buy this car LOL

Benjamin [inactive]

Some people here have customised 'number plates' (what we call 'matriculations'). For example, my music teacher has two cars — one is 080ES (i.e. 'oboes') and the other is C3LL0 (i.e. 'cello').

But the normal ones just have a mixture of about eight letters and numbers. I think that the first two letters/numbers indicate the part of the country where the car was registered.

Newer plates include the European Union label, and are usually labeled GB, although in Scotland they are often labeled SCO instead, although I think this is unofficial.

Shouga

Pauline

fab

Fredrik

In Norway there is a diffuse two-lettre provincial systems followed by six(?) numbers, no funny signs.

My favourite car signs are the German ones, because you can not only see what state they come from because of the cute little coat of arms, but also which (Stadt)Kreis = city/county/département, because of a code of one, two or three letters. Makes driving on the Autobahn more fun when you can gossip about what that car from Schleswig-Holstein, and Nordfriesland to be precise, might be doing far down in Bavaria and vice versa...

Deborah

In the USA, each state has its own arrangement of letters and numbers, and the only consistent thing is the size of the license plates. Currently, California plates have one number + three letters + three numbers.

You can see license plates from all over the world here:

http://www.worldlicenseplates.com/

André in Zuid-Afrika

Each of the nine provinces have their own number plates. Normally this consists of three letters, followed by three numbers and then the abbreviation for the province (FS for my province).

You can also buy personalised number plates

GP = Gauteng

Deborah

I came a cross the list of banned letter combinations for California license plates here. They mostly call to mind various epithets or words of a scatological or sexual nature.

Pauline

Deborah

greg in noord-frankrijk

What we call immatriculation is made of this : 9999 WR 44. A four-digit number followed by a couple of letters and the département number (44 = Loire-Atlantique).

—> Loire-Atlantique

Some départements have three letters. I believe that 9999 then boils down to 999 in this case. Anyone confirms/infirms ?

Uriel

This is a New Mexico license plate:

It's yellow and red because those are the colors of our state flag. The hot air balloon is because we are known for our hot air balloon festivals, and the symbol on the side of the balloon is our Pueblo sun symbol (also on our flag). "Land of Enchantment" is our state's nickname (all states have nicknames), and yes, we are the only state that has to put "USA" on our license plates so that other Americans don't get confused....

Pauline

Sorry for my mistake : I thought that it was matriculation in english because I thought that I've heard this and because it's similar with the french word. Next time I will create a thread I will look up in the dictionary.

Loic

Car number plates are fairly logical here. The letters reflect their vintage while the numbers serve to distinguish one vehicle from the other.

So cars from the early 90s onwards start off with SBA XXXX YY (where X stands for a number and Y for a letter). A few months down the road, it'd be SBB XXXX YY and so on. A few years back, my dad bought a car which answered to the number plate of SFD XXXX YY. The latest series is already beginning with SFZ.

As cars here are very expensive and most car owners do not have an incentive to keep their cars beyond 10 years, the average life span of a car here is only around 4 years before it gets sold in the resale market or sent to expire in the scrapyard.

Uriel

Matriculation is an English word -- but it means graduation, as in from high school or a university. It has nothing to do with license plates.

Luckily, a picture is worth a thousand words....