What is a Prefix Style Number Plate?
Prefix style registration numbers were introduced in 1983, when the suffix style registrations ended. Like suffix number plates, prefix number plates also contain a letter as a year identifier to indicate the year the vehicle was registered. The year identifier is the first letter (hence the term prefix registration). Letter / number combinations could then be re-used the following year, with a different prefix letter – to accommodate the new vehicles. Some letters were excluded as prefix letters, such as Q, O, and Z. Prefix style number plate continued until 2001, when they ran out of letters for the prefix. This is when the current style number plate was introduced.
