Those "German" style reg plates.

Comhrá

Does anyone feel the currently fashonable 'German-style' reg. plates look a bit silly? Maybe I'm just too old to be posting here but I was driving on the motorway the other day when a young guy in a 03 3-series came flying up behind me and passed by. I was surprised at what I thought was a German car with RHD till I spotted the reg - something like 03R12345.

I mean . . . . a Roscommon car with 'German' plates

They're everywhere now. Every second youngster's car has them. Are they even legal? Not that any enforcement will ever occur anyway.

Have Irish lads such inferior complexes that they want their cars to look like they're somehow 'foreign'? As I say...maybe I'm just gone a little old 'n grumpy.

mikehn

For the speed cameras :rolleyes:

DaveHumphreys

I don't get it. Think it looks a bit naff to be honest.

MEGA BRO WOLF 5000

It's part of the felt-spec culture.
They're horrible.
I'd sooner drive one of those souped-up civics than drive a totally ruined Audi A4, 3 Series etc.

Cee-Jay-Cee

I know a 40-something year old who drives a 142 Audi A5 who thought it wod be really cool to fit them to his car. Ruined a beautiful car IMO.

umop apisdn

Audi is the favourte skanger brand these days, so the naff fake german plates complete the look.

Gumbo

I like them. Look much better that the italic style font that the rest of the country use.

It's personal choice I suppose, just the same way that I wouldn't be caught dead driving an octavia!

Sheep Lover

Jaysus, it's a reg plate. They are hardly nailing a dead baby to the boot.

OldMrBrennan83

This post has been deleted.

fullstop

Yep, ridiculous looking things. As are the ones with the surrounds on the number plates like 'BMW Autohaüs München'

Gumbo

fullstop wrote: »

Yep, ridiculous looking things. As are the ones with the surrounds on the number plates like 'BMW Autohaüs München'

They are similar to aunt Mary driving around in her focus with Finglas Ford plastered on her reg surrounds?

MEGA BRO WOLF 5000

Sheep Lover wrote: »

Jaysus, it's a reg plate. They are hardly nailing a dead baby to the boot.

Yeah because we were all freaking out in here before you came along to calm us down :rolleyes:

Gumbo

The Honey Monster wrote: »

Yeah because we were all freaking out in here before you came along to calm us down :rolleyes:

Some people were, they actually posted the same comment across multiple threads

my3cents

Sheep Lover wrote: »

Jaysus, it's a reg plate. They are hardly nailing a dead baby to the boot.

Saw on one of the UK police car chase TV programs that they were pulling people with these plates. Even if you can prove they are legal if the garda wants an excuse to pull you over you are handing them one on a (number) plate.

Brasso

tippman1 wrote: »

They're everywhere now. Every second youngster's car has them. Are they even legal? Not that any enforcement will ever occur anyway.

The font itself is fine I think, as long as there are no slashes going through the zeros. But if it has DE instead of IRL, German crests or missing the dashes between year, county and number then it's against the rules.

Sheep Lover

The Honey Monster wrote: »

Yeah because we were all freaking out in here before you came along to calm us down :rolleyes:

:rolleyes:

Banjoxed

I find them useful to assess the whanker level of the car behind me and adjust my driving accordingly.

blade1

They are a lot better than those plastic "chrome" surrounds that were doing the rounds a while back.
The chrome has now all flaked off and all is left is a shïtty white plastic surround!

bazz26

Slow Saturday on the interweb....:pac:

Del2005

It's worse when they stick them on non German cars. I can kinda see the point for German made vehicles since we can have personalised registrations but on a non German car it's just sad.

EagererBeaver

Del2005 wrote: »

It's worse when they stick them on non German cars. I can kinda see the point for German made vehicles since we can have personalised registrations but on a non German car it's just sad.

I don't see how it's any different to any other car modification. Just a question of different strokes for different folks, as long as it's legal.

Toyotafanboi

i had German plates bought for the Astra the same afternoon the deposit was put down. Really transforms the front end imo, the font on the German plates being that bit chunkier just completes the look a lot better than the Irish vinyl plates.

Not the best comparison photos but you get the gist.

umop apisdn

An Irish Toytafanboi buying an Opel ? Am I in the right country ?

Nice motor though, wear well.

Sh1tbag OToole

I was wondering what f*cking purpose those plates served. Much prefer the oldschool black on red Irish plates, or some other form of Irish plates from the good old days

String

Irish style metal plates look a lot better than german with or without the slit in the 0. Font looks much cleaner than german one IMO

fullstop

kceire wrote: »

They are similar to aunt Mary driving around in her focus with Finglas Ford plastered on her reg surrounds?

Lol, it is yeah...except your aunty Mary might actually have taken a trip down to Finglas Ford herself

umop apisdn

I have to admit, I do like these feltspek stickers though :

Pawwed Rig

I think the font and size is actually specified in the legislation (would need to look it up though). Not the biggest crime in the greater scheme of things though.

Brasso

Pawwed Rig wrote: »

I think the font and size is actually specified in the legislation (would need to look it up though). Not the biggest crime in the greater scheme of things though.

http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/1992/en/si/0318.html
There's the 1992 act, I didn't read the whole thing, but a text search of the page shows the word 'font' doesn't come up. If you scroll down to 'First Schedule - Form of Identification Marks' it describes the size the letters should be but I can't see a reference to a particular style. However I'm not really able to read the whole thing on my phone.

umop apisdn

In true Irish style, we go from no regulations to bringing in the most complicated convoluted regulations in the world, and then practice almost zero enforcement.

From wiki, if it's accurate : "Unlike legal requirements in all other European countries, a standard uniform character font is not required. The rules simply require legible black sans serif characters, no more than 70 mm high and 36 mm wide with a stroke width of 10 mm, on a white reflective background. The result is that a large variety of perfectly legal font styles may be seen, on either pressed aluminium or acrylic plates, both of which are allowed.[2] Despite the rather relaxed lack of a specified font, the hyphen between the lettering must lie between the minimum dimensions of 13mm x 10mm or the maximum dimension of 22mm x 10mm. Vehicle owners may be fined if the plate's format does not meet the requirements, and the vehicle will fail the mandatory periodic National Car Test"

A san serif font, means any font without projecting characters (Serifs)

An example of a Sans Serif font


An example of a Serif font


Serifs marked in red


I do like the not well known abilty to choose your own font style though, as long as its san serif.

I doubt those german style fonts are sans serif ?

In fairness the french fonts look good on french motors.

Pov06

There's only one thing worse than German style plates... UK style plates.

You always see them on felt spec cars with the Irish registration on UK/NI plates. Looks horrible...

YbFocus

I have them, most legal variant.
County, eu symbol etc.

I like them

umop apisdn

Pov06 wrote: »

There's only one thing worse than German style plates... UK style plates.

You always see them on felt spec cars with the Irish registration on UK/NI plates. Looks horrible...

Some younger felt spekers might think its a fashion thing.
There can be other reasons too though. In the past, some motorists living on the border, or traveling though NI often, used yellow rear plates so their car didn't stand out too much in NI, - a very desirable thing in certain areas.

Pov06

umop apisdn wrote: »

There can be other reasons too though. In the past, some motorists living on the border, or traveling though NI often, used yellow rear plates so their car didn't stand out too much in NI, - a very desirable thing in certain areas.

You are probably right. It is a common trend along the felt spec folk though.

umop apisdn

Pov06 wrote: »

You are probably right. It is a common trend along the felt spec folk though.

Yeah I think it's pretty easy to tell who's doing it for felt spek reasons though.

darragh o meara

It's a personal preference imo. I have them on my BMW and they look well. I was worried that the NCT would fail them on the font but they were fine with it, only noting that the plates didn't have the Irish county name sticker on them.

As far as the myth regarding speed cameras not being able to read them, it's a load of ball aches... the German font is read much easier by the camera as there is no real chance of numbers being misread.

colm_mcm

Pov06 wrote: »

There's only one thing worse than German style plates... UK style plates.

You always see them on felt spec cars with the Irish registration on UK/NI plates. Looks horrible...

You know you can get yellow German plates now

umop apisdn

colm_mcm wrote: »

You know you can get yellow German plates now

Now that's what I call classey

OldMrBrennan83

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18MonthsaSlave

Real German plates are pressed metal.

OldMrBrennan83

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It is not more of a **** than Nurburgring sticker, though that's pretty wanky

Stop clocking

What really bugs me is people driving the very non German Lexus is 220/250 and with those silly plates fitted.
Tends to be fitted in conjunction with constantly switched on front fog lights I have noticed .........

Bazzy

Deleted User wrote: »

It is not more of a **** than Nurburgring sticker, though that's pretty wanky

Yes but that sticker and the german plates adds 50bhp to the car that's a well known fact!!

dr.fuzzenstein

Patww79 wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

I would prefer the pressed metal plates. Standard ones, of course. You can get them with Irish font and everything, you know?
So the only difference is the material, but both plates are the Irish standard ones, except one is made from horrible, flimsy plastic, looks absolutely yuk and the other one is a pressed metal plate that has a bit of presence and looks like a proper quality item.
If done right they are class. No need for German font and Baden Württemberg and TUV stickers. I agree, that is silly.
Beispiel:



http://www.eireplates.com/samples.asp

Once the horrible, cracked, faded, smeggy, cheap and nasty looking plastic plates have completely rotted away on my car, something like that will be the replacement.
And since it's a Ford, it's even a proper German car. If you argue it's not, then neither is Opel.

edit:
And one thing no one in history has ever said: "yes, that looks much better in plastic than in metal!".

millington

Good God the posters in this forum have to be the most horribly narrow minded folk I've ever seen Judging people purely by the style of plate on their car is a new low :eek:

Different styles of plates suit different kinds of cars and I think German pressed plates do suit the majority of German cars, thought they were far better than the standard plates on my E39



It's a good thing I had no plate at all on the front so I couldn't get judged from rear view mirrors :rolleyes:

dr.fuzzenstein

I don't even mind the font so much and I do like pressed metal plates (better quality than those sh*te plastic ones), but does it really need a county and TUV sticker? Where do you even get those?

String

What is the purpose of the stickers? Are they not something they use in Germany for a registration reason? I'm sure if they didn't have to have them they would remove them. If your a fan of German font fair enough but those stickers make no sense to me on Irish cars

frozenfrozen

What's the story with people having no front plate? mostly all skangered golfs with the reg left in the window probably so they can claim it fell off and they were driving to the garage to have it put back on

kdevitt

frozenfrozen wrote: »

What's the story with people having no front plate? mostly all skangered golfs with the reg left in the window probably so they can claim it fell off and they were driving to the garage to have it put back on

Front reg plates aren't required in lots of countries, some people prefer the look of the car without one.

Legal requirement here is to have the plate visible from the front - doesn't necessarily need to be screwed into your bumper.

jca

kceire wrote: »

I like them. Look much better that the italic style font that the rest of the country use.

It's personal choice I suppose, just the same way that I wouldn't be caught dead driving an octavia!

Despite its German underpinnings....