[harit]

Originally Posted by karlosdeville

Very very nice! We had only seen one record of BMV in the past, and that too also on a similar Jawa, posted by Harit here..... Maybe this series was immediately withdrawn, or restricted to a certain class of vehicles -.......

BMV is still a mystery, hope we get to the bottom of this series soon. Noted is that these three examples of which we have pics all have 3 digit numbers. I am not sure of which was the first series dedicated to 2 or 4 wheelers. Many like BMX, BML etc. had both bikes and cars registered, bikes were probably in the lower digits.

Originally Posted by karlosdeville

This letter appeared in Motor Sport Magazine September 1979, the letter regarding Vauxhalls states that the English registration and insurance was valid throughout India with no changes.

I think that even today when you take a car across to India you only have to do customs formalities with a carnet, you have to obtain an international driving licence. I don't think that you need to pay tax on road use in India. Insurance should also be available at your start place for international travel. Maybe if you drive to Syria your premium will go up. India being British at that time had an easier process, maybe none. But customs existed even at that time.

Originally Posted by sabinesnubbing

moralfibre, Karl.
I had previously thought that the BMV series was a 1939 motorbike only series. In the 1939 registrations BMT (public transport), BMW and BMX (both private 4 wheelers) were all issued so V fits nicely for mc.........Cheers
Cedric

Well, all BM? registrations were issued for Bombay, I am sure that BMX and BML were also seen on motorbikes, maybe other series too. Now when did they stop mixing cars and bikes in a series is not yet clear. But private and commercial were always kept as separate series.

Here is a BYS, do we have this series before? This is certainly in Gujrat, so probably a series which has been re-registered. Are many known of this series? The truck is a Chevy, probably military disposal.

Cheers harit

[sabinesnubbing]

Harit,
Nice old photo!
I have BYS as Baroda commercial series from 1939- so that fits with the vehicle I think. That is the first photo of BYS I have seen though.
Good man!
Cheers
Cedric

[manishalive]

sabinesnubbing,

Got this Picture as a query from a friend on the make & model, which was easy to depict. However the registration number is new to me, hope you can enlighten us on this -

[KartikeyaL]

Originally Posted by manishalive

sabinesnubbing,

Got this Picture as a query from a friend on the make & model, which was easy to depict. However the registration number is new to me, hope you can enlighten us on this -

Attachment 1391850

This is from Ajmer before independence and before merger with Rajasthan,here is a snap shot of number plate of my family's car.

[manishalive]

Originally Posted by KartikeyaL

This is from Ajmer before independence and before merger with Rajasthan,here is a snap shot of number plate of my family's car.

Attachment 1391998

Wow this helps. The guy who sent me also hails from Ajmer. He has a ford dealership there.

[sabinesnubbing]

Gents,
That is what I have - a 1939 series number from what I believe was officially Ajmer-Merwara-Kekri. We are all in agreement then which is good!
Just wish we understood what the M was. A place or a vehicle type. British India - such organization and yet the registration systems were (and still are) so completely different from place to place. I wish we had a sighing smiley on TeamBHP LOL
Cheers
Cedric

[anjan_c2007]

Originally Posted by harit

Well, all BM? registrations were issued for Bombay, I am sure that BMX and BML were also seen on motorbikes, maybe other series too. Now when did they stop mixing cars and bikes in a series is not yet clear. But private and commercial were always kept as separate series.

Here is a BYS, do we have this series before? This is certainly in Gujrat, so probably a series which has been re-registered. Are many known of this series? The truck is a Chevy, probably military disposal.

Cheers harit

BM series was exclusively reserved for Bombay. BY was for other cities and towns of Bombay State. The series BMN was restarted for two wheelers in Bombay in the 1980's. I have a copy of an Indian Auto Journal of the late 1980's with an RE Bullet having such a series viz. BMN.

BYS is news to us and maybe many were not in the know of such a series. BYS could be Bombay State, Surat city. Yes Harit, the light truck is a Chevrolet 1.5 tonner from military disposal. Jawans of the Army used to I remember call it Ford Chanda (for Canada) as Fords were also built these during the WW II and much after (like the older Willys).The Nissan 1.5 tonner (built by Heavy Vehicle Factory, Jabalpur) started to replace these Fords and Chevrolets since the 1960's.
But these petrol driven trucks imported from Canada were extremely tough and reliable and lasted with our forces till the late 1970's and even early 1980's.

[sabinesnubbing]

[quote=anjan_c2007;3754086]BM series was exclusively reserved for Bombay. BY was for other cities and towns of Bombay State. The series BMN was restarted for two wheelers in Bombay in the 1980's. I have a copy of an Indian Auto Journal of the late 1980's with an RE Bullet having such a series viz. BMN.

Anjan,
this is interesting news. The original BMN finished in about 1960. I have never seen any photo of a BMN plate be it pre 1960 or 1980s.
Any chance you can share the article/photo?
Cheers
Cedric

[harit]

Originally Posted by anjan_c2007

BM series was exclusively reserved for Bombay. BY was for other cities and towns of Bombay State. The series BMN was restarted for two wheeler's in Bombay in the 1980's. I have a copy of an Indian Auto Journal of the late 1980's with an RE Bullet having such a series viz. BMN........................

[quote=sabinesnubbing;3754496]

Originally Posted by anjan_c2007

............
Anjan,
this is interesting news. The original BMN finished in about 1960. I have never seen any photo of a BMN plate be it pre 1960 or 1980s. Any chance you can share the article/photo? Cheers Cedric

Anjan and Cedric are only partially correct. BMN series was exclusively a temporary registration series applied on new vehicles before registration after a sale. The cars were given this registration when moving around, between manufacturer / stockyards to dealers to buyers. Few ran even after the sale if they were to be registered elsewhere. This series did indeed run into the 1980's. But they also had a slash with an extra letter.
Hope it's clarified.

Cheers harit

[anjan_c2007]

A picture of the Bullet bearing the number BMN from Indian Auto Journal is posted here for reference.

The Premiers (early Fiats) from Kurla used to travel by road to the dealership with yellow background temporary number plates with red alpha numericals and numbers like BYE 504, 505 and so on.

Ambassadors used to similarly travel by road with temporary numbers like WGK 8690, 8691 and so on.These were four digit numbers in the 8000 plus range.

[sabinesnubbing]

Originally Posted by anjan_c2007

A picture of the Bullet bearing the number BMN from Indian Auto Journal is posted here for reference.

That would have been a dealer plate rather than a red on yellow temporary one. It should be white on red with a letter after the numbers. I just wonder if the photo is of a bike that is exhibited somewhere and the registration is just made up to suit the display. It looks like it was photographed through glass almost.
Cheers
Cedric

[schakravarthy]

Pictures of the same Bullet500 I remembered having read about in an old copy of Auto India.
The article was about the 'riding impression'.

[harit]

Originally Posted by anjan_c2007

A picture of the Bullet bearing the number BMN from Indian Auto Journal .......

Originally Posted by sabinesnubbing

That would have been a dealer plate rather than a red on yellow temporary one. It should be white on red with a letter after the numbers. ...... Cheers Cedric

Originally Posted by schakravarthy

Pictures of the same Bullet500 I remembered having read about in an old copy of Auto India.......

There is no doubt that BMN were dealer and temporary plates. Maybe when the bike was new and not registered to an individual or company, they did not bother to change the plates for the photo shoot.

Have we seen MYS before? I saw this in FaceBook.

Cheers harit

[sabinesnubbing]

Originally Posted by harit

Have we seen MYS before? I saw this in FaceBook.

Cheers harit

Harit,
MYS seems to have appeared after MY finished in probably the early 30s.
It gets confusing (well to me anyway) as we have this photo of MYS 6336 from somewhere on here that is said to be a 1920s bike. I guess thaat 1930s MYS covered the whole of Mysore. In 1939 they seem to have split up Mysore registrations and MYS was allocated to Shimoga only with MYM for Mysore and indeed there are another 9 suffix letters on the list.
If that is all correct, the reregistrations must have been chaos in 1939!
Cheers
Cedric

[FINTAIL]

Originally Posted by sabinesnubbing

Have we seen MYS before? I saw this in FaceBook.

Cheers harit

MYS was also a mid-Fifties registration, I believe.

Seen it umpteen times, IIRC. Somewhere in the Mysore Presidency.