240 General: New (to me) 1980 Volvo 244

[john.wigley]

Originally Posted by Othen

... it is really generous of the government to let me ride a 44 year old motorcycle around without paying about £20 tax.

I mention this because the Royal Barge will qualify for the same scheme on 1 April next year, and it will make me happy to drive a ton and a half of car that only does 25 MPG around on British roads for free :-)

Stay safe.

And so it should, Alan, so it should.

Do not forget that in the first 40 years of it's life that bike has probably netted HMG circa £600 and the car around 10 times that - not exactly small beer.

Couple that with how many 40+ year old vehicles there are on the road and I doubt that it is any great sacrifice for HMG. It does however give you a nice warm feeling, one which I also enjoyed when I had my two '60s mopeds.

I was also fortunate in having an 'old fashioned' dealer locally (now a micro-pub, but that's another story) who understood the idiosyncrasies of older machines when MOT time loomed.

Regards, John.

[Othen]

Originally Posted by john.wigley

And so it should, Alan, so it should.

Do not forget that in the first 40 years of it's life that bike has probably netted HMG circa £600 and the car around 10 times that - not exactly small beer.

Couple that with how many 40+ year old vehicles there are on the road and I doubt that it is any great sacrifice for HMG. It does however give you a nice warm feeling, one which I also enjoyed when I had my two '60s mopeds.

I was also fortunate in having an 'old fashioned' dealer locally (now a micro-pub, but that's another story) who understood the idiosyncrasies of older machines when MOT time loomed.

Regards, John.

I did bother reading the government's discussion paper when it was considering the historic vehicle business, actually it was quite interesting (and very well considered).

You are right, it is no great loss for HMG, and I don't suppose I'll do more than 2,000 miles/year worth of damage to the roads. It will of course give me a warm feeling when the Royal Barge qualifies in 11 months time, as it does when I ride the Suzuki around now.

Stay safe.

Alan

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by Othen

You are right, it is no great loss for HMG, and I don't suppose I'll do more than 2,000 miles/year worth of damage to the roads. It will of course give me a warm feeling when the Royal Barge qualifies in 11 months time, as it does when I ride the Suzuki around now.

Stay safe.

Alan

With the general state of the roads these days, while you're doing 2,000 miles worth of damage to them, they will incur 20,000 miles worth of damage on your vehicle

From that perspective, it's nice to get whatever you can back as "compensation"

[Othen]

Originally Posted by Laird Scooby

With the general state of the roads these days, while you're doing 2,000 miles worth of damage to them, they will incur 20,000 miles worth of damage on your vehicle

From that perspective, it's nice to get whatever you can back as "compensation"

Ha, ha Dave - perhaps I should convert the Royal Barge into a monster truck!

:-)

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by Othen

Ha, ha Dave - perhaps I should convert the Royal Barge into a monster truck!

:-)

[Othen]

Originally Posted by Laird Scooby

If I did that to the Royal Barge you chaps would never talk to me again!

Stay safe,

:-)

[john.wigley]

And you would also need to rename it, Alan! The 'Tonka Toy', perhaps? J.

[Clifford Pope]

Originally Posted by Othen

It seems like a very clumsy system: DVLA writes to me telling me

Perhaps the point is really that bureaucrats just can't bear to think that there might be cars out in the world that they are not registering and controlling.

On the other hand that is exactly what they have permitted by granting open-ended SORN that remains in force indefinitely. There must be a growing number of forgotten wrecks rusting away, still in theory in existence, still on SORN, but in practice long gone.

I used to keep all my old parts cars on SORN, just in case I ever wanted to rebuild one. Several were fully dismanted, and existed only in boxes of bits.
I had a clear out a few years ago, got rid of a lot of stuff, kept a shed full of useful doors, wings etc, and cut up some old body-shells and got them taken away as scrap.
Now I can't remember which were officially scrapped, which might still be on SORN. There's no mechanism for interogating the system and asking "How many cars have I got?", so some will live forever as dead souls in the records of the DVLA. And presumably misleading researchers who look at the statistics of numbers of old models still taxed/SORNed?

[Othen]

Originally Posted by john.wigley

And you would also need to rename it, Alan! The 'Tonka Toy', perhaps? J.

Ha, ha. I think we will be leaving the Royal Barge just as it is John.

When I was taxing (free) my Suzuki yesterday I had to tick a box saying it has not been substantially modified - I don't think I'd be able to do that if the RB had been jacked up by two feet and fitted with tractor tyres!

I'm very happy enough with the RB the way it is. I'll get this little leaky cylinder head problem sorted in about a week and then take your advice: enjoy my motor car for the summer. I'll probably SORN it November-March and then never have to pay road tax for it again :-)

Stay safe.

Alan

[Othen]

Originally Posted by Clifford Pope

Perhaps the point is really that bureaucrats just can't bear to think that there might be cars out in the world that they are not registering and controlling.

On the other hand that is exactly what they have permitted by granting open-ended SORN that remains in force indefinitely. There must be a growing number of forgotten wrecks rusting away, still in theory in existence, still on SORN, but in practice long gone.

Maybe you are right; I just thought the bureaucracy involved was wonderfully British, I can just imagine it being designed by a committee of civil servants. Bits of paper and bits online.

I had to renew my passport last month - which was fantastic - online, even including submitting the photo and paying for it - until the very end when I had to go to the post office to mail my old one (out of date) back to the passport office to have the corner cut off. I must admit I was impressed with the online procedure, but we (Brits) just can't seem to let go of that final link to bits of paper.

Actually, there is far less red tape in the UK than in most of the other western countries I have lived in.

Stay safe,

Alan