Local dealer happy to smile

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My local Saab dealer, Astley Saab of Yeovil, (www.astleysaab.co.uk/) is happy to report that things are not looking too bad at the moment. They are diversifying their ways and they are also managing to sell “Brand New Saab’s”.

Some of you know that in the UK the registrations change twice a year and on the 1st September the “61” plate will be seen on the roads.
Jerry Peck and his staff have five new 61 plated Saab’s waiting to drive onto the roads of Yeovil for the first time.

It is always great to hear good news and that people still beleive in Saab and are happy to sign up for a new one.

 

The gentleman buying the white TTiD above told me that he was very happy to be getting his new Saab even though the news from Trollhättan was so up and down day by day. Nothing would stop him taking her home.

19 thoughts on “Local dealer happy to smile”

    • ‘
      RedJ
      The number system changed about 10 years ago, so the plate changes twice a year.

      It consists of 7 digits. so I copied this here, hope you understand it:

      New Style Registrations Explained (E.G. SK 54 MPK)

      New Style registrations are those which follow the format of a two letter prefix (in the above example the SK), followed by a two digit year identifier (the 54 above) and finally three more letters (MPK). The New Style reg became the current standard for vehicles from the second half of 2000 – hence they are sometimes reffered to as Millennium Plates – and replaced the exhausted prefix format. For the first time in UK registrations the letter Z was allowed as a character in the last three letters – but not in the prefix. The two digit number in the registration would originally have been used to to determine the age of the vehicle it was being displayed on – as shown in the below table.

      The two prefix letters of this registration would originally have been used to identify the area of the country in which the registration was issued (in the above example the SK indicates that this registration would have been released in Scotland, most likely from the Edinburgh DVLA Vehicle Registration Office.). As these registrations have an age identifier (the two digits), you can only assign them to vehicles of the same age as the registration or younger. As with all registrations that carry a year identifier you can make your vehicle look as old as you want, but not one day newer. So, for example, the above registration – SK54 MPK – could be assigned to any vehicle first manufactured after 01/09/2004, but you’d be unable to put it on a vehicle that was manufactured before that date as you would be giving the impression that the vehicle was more modern than it is.

      We presently have 15,011,299 unique new style registrations on our database which you can search

    • terry was quicker than me, lol.
      It’s strange to say the least.
      Every six months a new series of plates come out.
      xx 61 xxx is for the next six months, xx11 xxx is just about to finish. In six months it will be xx12 xxx.
      The first two digits will normally tell you were the car was purchased, The W on my two photo’s say “The West County”. Other places, all over the UK have their own letters. The last three letters are random.
      But….. you can also buy your own number plates which will not relate to where the car was born or even how old it is. It’s a subject all off it’s own.
      Robin.

        • .
          YES
          the 2nd digit, is the year marker.

          It is a bit confusing, as the 1st 6months it is the year [ie; 12 = 2012] but then changes to a 62. the period between 2000-2009 the 2nd six month period was a 5 [as in 6 above].

          The good thing is you only have to look at the 3rd & 4th digit of a plate (which are placed together ie: XX 12 XXX & you know when it was registered.

      • .
        RobinM

        Just copied it6 from a plate www, seemed easier than trying to explain it….

        Nice to see us Brits are waving the Saab flag, must be some stock in the UK!!.

  4. As an Ex-Pat Brit I can tell you that they are obsessed with number plate because the plate stays with the car like “The Scarlet Letter.” So everyone nows how old it is. This makes people worry needlessly about residual value.

    I much prefer th US System where we can personalize our plates including “SAAB>”

      • The firm I used to work for has these – was never entirely sure why they bothered but it gave a nice consistency to the office car park. They were ‘old style’ plates ending with the three-letter business acronym. As noted above, the dates ‘aged’ the cars (they were all 1983-date plates on much newer cars, including two Saabs I might add). All very nice and dandy except it caused some headaches trying to transfer custom plates between leased cars.

        nb., the switch from old-style to new-style plates was in 2001. I haven’t a clue how the system worked before the old-style plates (ie., pre-1960s).

        • cakewalker

          Got this from the same site as above;

          Dateless Registrations Explained (E.G. TOA 123)

          When registrations were introduced in 1903, and before the suffix format came into effect in 1963, they had no discernable year identifying numbers or digits on them. With a registration like this it’s impossible to tell (without insider knowledge) how old the vehicle displaying it is. Prefix registrations are so called because their initial letter (prefix) identifies the age of a vehicle, suffix registrations because their trailing (suffix) letter identifies the age of the vehicle and the new style reg can identify a vehicle age from the two digit number they contain. All of these styles of registration follow the rule that they cannot be assigned to vehicles that were manufactured before their date of issue. But because dateless registrations are considered dateless (hence their name), these registrations can be assigned and displayed on vehicles of any age. Because these format registrations date back to pre-1963, they’re considered the cream of the crop in the numberplate world. They’re often very difficult to come by, simply because vehicles they were originally on will have long since been scrapped. They do, however, come with a history attached to them and you can be sure that the reg you’re buying will be one of only a small number of similar reg still on the roads. Dateless reg come in various configurations, either with 1, 2, 3 or 4 digits followed by 1, 2 or 3 letters, or the reverse with 1, 2 or 3 letters followed by 1, 2, 3 or 4 digits. The single or consecutive letters in the registration would originally have been able to identify the area of the country in which the registration was issued (in the above example the TOA indicates that this registration would have been released in Birmingham).

          National Numbers realise that buying a private number plate is not cheap and therefore we are the only DVLA Number Plate business to offer 0% Finance on most of our 30 million cherished plates. A few other companies have tried to copy our approach but usually give up after a few months. This is because it is not simple to offer 0% finance on such a vast quantity of Cherished Number Plates that you can buy securely online; we use the latest encryption possible. It is the same standard used by main banks.

  5. I love good news. I know that the main enemy Saab faces right now is anxiety. The simple facts are that saab isn’t producing cars. They lose money now while plant is idle due to fixed costs. They will incur start-up costs. We have to accept that the management bet on being able to force Vladimir into the company, then, an infusion of 70 million dollars would have kept the wolves at bay and the Chinese order would have looked like sheer brilliance. We are where we are. As loyal Saab fans, we hope that there is a bridge to the future. This bridge has expanded in size, to be correct, it would need to include funds to totally pay off suppliers. ~100 million dollars, perhaps, could be worse, could be as much as 40% of last years’s gross sales. The bridge will also need to have the 300 million to get rid of the EIB, IF you want to have Antonov as a direct participant in the company. I would suspect that it would be easier to find a bridge loan for $200 million dollars, have Vladimir buy 4000 cars for the Russian market, etc, suitcase of cash outside back door 🙂 whatever works, than to get EIB loan gone, fund the remaining development, and go on etc.
    All of this is just to focus on one thing. We know enough to know things are not good, and we don’t know enough to know that we are getting out of the mess we are in. As such, the single biggest thing is to move the inventory that IS on dealers lots off of it. The more we can support the brand, get stuff sold, the more likely investors are going to be to sign on dotted line. That is the real struggle, total chicken and egg stuff. That is where we as an enthusiasts site can help. Clearing inventory off dealers’ lots would be a great goal. The fact that there are huge markdowns and a crisis in confidence won’t help this fight at all. However, that is the only way we can help, unless there are some of us with a great deal of spare cash hiding out in the back bedroom 🙂

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