NSW Historic Plate Adapter

It was just announced that the NSW 60 day logbook ‘trial’ has been made permanent. This is great news as its a really good system. The two minor drawbacks – the amount of paperwork and the size of the plates. The plates are tiny and really ugly. They are so small that they don’t line up with the mounting holes of nearly any car. The neatest way of mounting them is to use an adaptor.

On the 250SE and Traction Avant, I made adapter plates out of sheet aluminium. I’ve never been 100% happy with them. On the 450SLC, I […]

Mounting NSW Historic plates

NSW has a great historic registration system. It allows for classics to be used for 60 days on a logbook for a drastically reduced fee. For unknown reasons the plates issued are tiny plates with purple numerals. The plates are so small they are not wide enough for the mounting holes on most cars. As these plates don’t end up on some disposable SUV where new holes can simply be drilled, a mounting plate is required. On the 250SE and Traction Avant, I fabricated my own mounting plates out of sheet aluminium. I didn’t have time to do this for […]

Cost Savings of new RMS Logbook Trial

I’ve now moved two cars onto the new 60 day logbook trial with the RMS, and the cost savings are well worth it! The cost of full registration is just a bit above $1,000 if you assume a green slip of over $500 and the Rego of a little under $500. The cost of the new rego is around $150 including greenslip, so a saving of more than $850.

Adding to that, as the car is now on historic plates, the insurance goes down as well. so the savings per car work out to be in the order of $1,000 […]

NSW Classic Vehicle Log Book trial starts today

I was down at the RMS today, putting my Traction on the new trial for a logbook style registration scheme in NSW. I really had been dreading putting the traction on the old historic scheme, but with so many cars I just couldn’t justify them all on full rego, despite how bad the old scheme was.

Under the new rules, you get to use your car for up to 60 days in the year provided that you log the entries in the ‘logbook’ (which is actually a sheet of A4 paper) and you are a financial member of your nominated […]

NSW Roads Minister Duncan Gay is my new hero

After becoming cynical from the normal spin and lobby group driven policy from Governments, I was very happy to see two very commonsense announcements from NSW Government minister Duncan Gay today.

A trial for improvements to the NSW Conditional Registration scheme (Club Rego) A study to investigate higher speed limits on sections of the Hume and Pacific Highways

The trial for improvements to NSW Conditional Registration will last for two years and allow for 60 days of personal use provided that a log book is kept. This brings the NSW system in line with the Victorian system which is excellent. […]

The NSW CMC stance on historic registration is disappointing and short sighted

Today I read a report from the NSW Council of Motor Clubs about their stance on historic registration. (It was published in the Magazine of the Jaguar Drivers Club of Australia). Basically their stance is to support the status quo (with minor amendments for street rods) and so NSW continues to have the worst historic registration system in the country. Obviously the final decision rests with the NSW Government, but in order for the Government to act, the CMC would need to support change. I find this stance disappointing and short sighted.

As I understand it from speaking to people […]

Car manufacturers influence proposed NSW car registration changes?

NSW already has the most expensive car registration in the country, with no change from $1,000 to register the typical car – and that is just the Greenslip, Registration fees and other Government taxes.

NSW also has a particularly useless conditional registration scheme, whereby collector cars can go on ‘club’ plates and be used only for club events. Great if you are able to make a lot of club events, but not so great if you have to work a lot, or have a young family and want to drive your car when you can.

Now they are at it […]