GOPAPA wrote:
I want to tell you that I got me a Western Australia license plate last week from a fella who lives there ..do you live in the western part also ? the plate is identified with a WA above the numbers and it is a yellow one ,,maybe you can tell me the year it is by its color if you would ..as I didn't get this from him .. LD
The colour of the plate is not much of an indicator of the year. In West Oz, number plates were originally (in the late 1950s and early 1960s) black with white lettering, starting with the letter U (UAB 123 or similar). Then the plates changed to white with black lettering. Once they ran out of U combinations they changed to an X prefix. Once they ran out of Xs (at XZZ 999) they started using a numerical prefix beginning with 6 (6AA 123). The 6-prefix plates were yellow with black text, and started in the late 1970s. From there, they continued through 7, 8 and 9 prefixes all with black on yellow, although the slogan on the plate changed from time to time (eg WA The Golden State, WA State of Excitement). As an aside, the car registrations only went up to letter S (eg 6SA 123) as 6TA (and then 7TA, 8TA etc) and onward were used for trailer registrations. Also, 'Q' registrations (eg 6QN 123) were used only by government cars (and buses).
After they used up all the 9s, the plate configuration changed to a seven-digit combination starting with 1 (1ABC 123) which was white with blue lettering. This is the current style and is now up to around 1DAZ 999.
This only covers the metropolitan area though - country or shire plates have a one, two or three letter prefix (eg BY 123) with the letters corresponding to the region (BY is Bunbury, BSN is Busselton etc). These were black on yellow but are now blue on white. if the plate has a large dot in between the letters and numbers that signifies a 'shire' rather than a town.
In between there were 'personalised' plates of blue with black lettering ending in P, three alpha/three numeric combinations (eg GIW 124P). These also had 'WA - Home of the America's Cup' slogan for a while (when we had the Cup - between 1983 and 1987). After that they released two other 'custom plate' styles which could be any combination of letters and numbers (but not all numbers) - in a range of 14 colour combinations, and up to 7 characters (on aluminium) or 9 characters (on polycarbonate). Incidentally, a number series (white on black polycarbonate) and a car make series (with the make written in the manufacturer's script, black on white polycarbonate) were auctioned off in the 1980s.
As a fundraiser in the early 1990s (and still today), sporting clubs and local councils were offered their own series of plates. For example, Victoria Park has 123 VPK plates with the council logo, East Fremantle Yacht Club has EFYC 123 in the club's colours, etc.
And just recently there is now a 'Euro' style plate available which can be configured in a variety of ways, and if bought from a European marque dealer, can be sourced with the vehicle marque logo on the plate.
So, that might help you figure out what age your plate is. Bear in mind that each state has different alphanumeric combinations and colour schemes too.
