Early registration numbers in India

[sabinesnubbing]

Gents,
First BO 173P.
BO is for Bihar & Orissa province and the code ceased issue in 1935 when the two states split. P is not on my list and neither is Bankipore so we must assume P was indeed Bankipore. Several more obvious choices of letter are taken with other places (BA is Balasore for example) but I am surprised they did not use BP which is not on my list but may have existed as another place of course.

CAT 2737.
CA is on my list as Karnataka 1979 onwards. As for the red plate, it is very much in the style of a Gulf Arab state plate of the period and I am certain the English means India Private. The Urdu may actually be Gulf Arabic but is not as clear as I would like but it does seem to be the equivalent. The first (right hand) word is undoubtedly the same as they use all over the Gulf for 'private' and the second could well be India. I will ask an Arabic speaker about it.

Cheers
Cedric

[IndrojitSircar]

Could any one who knows how to read urdu tell us what is written on this number plate in the picture.

[girishpv]

Originally Posted by IndrojitSircar

Could any one who knows how to read urdu tell us what is written on this number plate in the picture.

Makhsoosi Al-Hind ( India Private)

[IndrojitSircar]

Originally Posted by girishpv

Makhsoosi Al-Hind ( India Private)

Thankx for confirming that.Now we have a few things clear about this car.

1). It is a karnataka registered car.

2).It has a private registration.

Now we need to figure out why does the car have a red number plate.Guys Please put in your views.

[Stanher]

Originally Posted by IndrojitSircar

Now we need to figure out why does the car have a red number plate.Guys Please put in your views.

Generally, I've seen that cars belonging to Royal stables have red regn. no. plates. One case point is this low-mileage Herald I know of here that belonged to the Raja of Dharampur, still sporting the red Dharampur plates.

[IndrojitSircar]

Originally Posted by IndrojitSircar

It is possible that it was a princely state car and then was sold to someone later and mayb the older red number plate colour was retained. And as far as the urdu writing is concerned i think the car was either owned by a muslim gentleman or by a muslim princely state and that was just been kept.

Originally Posted by Stanher

Generally, I've seen that cars belonging to Royal stables have red regn. no. plates. One case point is this low-mileage Herald I know of here that belonged to the Raja of Dharampur, still sporting the red Dharampur plates.

Shyam,even i had thought of the same thing because many of the ex royal stable cars do have these kind of number plates on them.So we need to think of some more possibilities.

[condor]

karlosdeville : It is fairly clear that CAT would be a later Karnataka series.

CAT is Karnataka, late 80's - very likely Bangalore. Many (if not all) CA* series are Karnataka - eg, CAL, CAR, CAE, etc.

[wasif]

Guys.

That Buick has carried that red "CAT" plate with the India Priv thing on it from much before teh Karnataka regestration series changer from "M" to "C".

In my opinion it is not from the new "C" series regestration in Karnataka.

Not xure whoch other staes used the "C" prefix. I think it was used in Chandigarh too at one time I have seen cars with "CAO" plates from there.

Maybe this car is from a Royal family somewhere in the north.

Cedric What do you think about this.

Maybe DKG can speak to the current owners and get some insight into this.

In any case I am very interested to know what this kind of plate means. What I am sure of is that it is not some kind of a vanity plate conjured up by the owners or a "muslim gent"

[Stanher]

Originally Posted by wasif

Not xure whoch other staes used the "C" prefix. I think it was used in Chandigarh too at one time I have seen cars with "CAO" plates from there.

CAO also is Karnataka of the 80s, sidman's dad had a Lambretta with that no. Chandigarh, being a UT, was first CH only (eg. CH 1234)

[sabinesnubbing]

wasif,
I have nothing on my lists that show any CA or CAx registrations prior to the 1979 Karnataka series. The red plate is very similar in style to those used in the Gulf area and I wonder if the owner of the Buick had previously worked in the Gulf and just put it on because he wanted something different on his car?
However if you say the red plate has been on it for longer than the CAT series existed, we need to ask the owner what it does mean and I can add it to the list! :-)
I can't really see the registration having royal connections. The car might have royal connections but under a different registration I would guess.
Cheers
Cedric

[wasif]

Cedric.

You must be aware of the 'C" prefix regestrations that we from Chandigarh in the eightines.

I had an uncle who had a Fiat from Chandigarh with the CHO plate ?

That Buick has been in Hyd for a long time. The owner never worked in teh Gulf, is a businessman in fact.

We will have to wait for input from DKG on this who knows the owners family.

[harit]

In a recent lot of pictures aquired in Delhi, I got a picture of a Chevy tourer of the late 1920"s bearing this peculiar registration number.
Any clues from where these may be? I have never seen these types before, B 19 MZ. The pictures had cars with Madras, Bihar and Rajasthan registrations, so cannot say where this picture was taken.
Maybe Sabinesnubbing has some ideas?

Cheers harit

[sabinesnubbing]

Harit,
We have on the list that plates with BO nnn MZ are Bihar and Orissa Muzzaharpur. This would be from 1912 to 1935 when Bihar and Orissa were separated from the Bengal presidency and became a province on their own and before the were split into two separate areas. I would be reasonably happy that B 19 MZ is a variation of this BO style number.
There are no other registrations on the list that it could be. That doesn't mean they didn't exist of course.
Cheers
Cedric

[predatorwheelz]

@sabinesnubbing - You probably mean MUZAFFARPUR, which is currently in N Bihar? AFAIK, there is or was no town called Muzzaharpur.

[sabinesnubbing]

predatorwheelz,
Indeed I probably do! Not the first spelling mistake we have had in the list although we try to stick to the Times World Atlas spelling as a standard. Many thanks for pointing that out.
Cheers
Cedric