At Chelsea Bridge, London.
Mostly american cars (including a couple of caddies!).
It's a meet that's been running since the 70s (with just a small break a few years ago).
Sometimes proper drag racers come down and lay rubber all the way down the (busy) street!

http://web.mac.com/hardrockcamaro/iWeb/Car%20Shows/Chelsea%20Cruise%20April%202006.html

That's some cool photos of the car meet. Especially seeing several of those models in the U.K. I bet you've got some proud owners there. :)

Oooh...a Fleetwood:bouncy:

How rare are these barges in the UK?

Also, just out of curiousity, what is the significance of the #'s and letters on the license plates? Here in the U.S. it's mainly just a random thing, but those look like they might have a specific meaning.

Someone should at least have cleaned the whitewalls on the Fleetwood before entering a car show. This stuff is of course routine in the US but still cool to see these cars getting attention from the UK!.

I've seen about 4 late model Fleetwoods over here in the last 3 years.
They're pretty rare.


Yeah the owners over here tend to drive what they do for several reasons:

1) They have a "thing" for America and the cars are one of living that. I fall into that category.
2) They want to drive something different.
3) They want the most powerful car they can get for xxx pounds. Due to the big engines and ease of tuning them up on the cheap, muscle cars easily fall into that category.


Apart from the STS, Jeeps, PT Cruisers, Neons, the 98-2001 (?) Camaro and the late 90s Blazer, all these cars would have been specially imported. Either by US military guys stationed overe here who couldn't be bothered to ship them back, or by private individuals who paid a premium to get the car of their dreams imported (either a classic or a new vette or whatever).

The most common of these imported cars is either the 3rd Gen F-Body's, 4th Gen F-Body's, C4 or C5 Vettes, 95 on Mustangs, late 90s F series trucks and late Dodge RAMs. Astro vans are real popular too as are some of the Chevy G20 dayvans. As for classics, there are several 60s Coupe Devilles, a load of Stingray Corvettes, several Chargers and other late 60s and 70s muscle cars. There are some rare ones too, there's only about 3 or 4 Saturns that I know of, there's a handful of Fieros, some late 50s Chevy's, and so on.
It's mainly the "interesting" cars that make it over here.



As for the plates, the format has changed over the years.


The first were made up of one letter with one number, the first (A1) being issued by London Council in 1903.

They then moved to up to 3 numbers and 3 letters (the letters indicated which area of the UK the car was registered in).

In the mid 60s they moved to having the following format:

3 letters, 3 numbers, 1 letter

The first 3 letters represented the area of the UK that the car was from. For example, GEY would mean the car was from the county of AnglesEY (the G, the first letter of the 3, is random).
The 3 numbers were just random.
The last letter was changed every year, beginning at A and skipping a few letters in the alphabet so it lasted around 20 years.


They then switched the system around so you had:

1 letter, 3 numbers, 3 letters.

This followed the same idea as the previous system.



At the end of 2001 they had again exhausted the system so they devised a new one:

2 letters, 2 numbers, 3 letters.

The first 2 letters indicate the area the car is from
The 2 numbers indicate the year
The last 3 letters are random.

Instead of changing once a year they now change the age part every 6 months. Cars registered in the first half of 2002 would get 02 an cars registered in the latter half would get 52 (ie add 50 to the figure). This is to stop people from waiting until the new years plate comes out before buying their car, so as to try and help spread car sales throughout the year.


Now, a few quirks...
If a car has a year represented by the letter Q, it means it has been reshelled. So kit cars (made from other cars chassis) often have Q plates. Also any car involved in a major accident that has had a new bodyshell would have a Q plate).


A car can wear a reg number that is older than the car itself, but it cannot have a reg number newer than the car is.


Also, plates over here can be sold for large sums of money as it's difficult to spell anything due to the layout restrictions

For example, say I wanted to buy the plate V8 USA (which follows one of the recent formats). The V means the plate is from 1999 which means I can put it on my 2000 STS, but I could not put it on my 1988 IROC.