Vic ’45’ heritage plate.
Huge thanks to Colin for sending in a couple of photos and some fantastic history on this plate:
“Finally found some old photos of Vic ’45’ which my father owned in the late 60’s/ early 70’s.
The story behind it is, he saw a Riley 2 1/2 back in the late 60’s, which featured the plate, an avid and determined Riley fan, my father went to the Motor Registration Branch (now vicroads i assume?) and paid 3 shillings for the owners name and home address, which was quite a lot of money back then he tells me.
He went to the owners house and offered to buy the car on the spot for $1,600, at this point, still unaware of the plate at this point. To my fathers delight the owner sold it to him.
He sold that Riley a few years down the track but held onto the licence plate, by this stage, now in the mid 70’s he bought a Brooklands Riley which he put the licence plate on.
One day a businessman from Geelong did what my father had done and located my father, who at this point was living in a rural, country property. The businessman offered $7,000 for the plate, which was a lot of money back then, enough to buy a Porsche. My father sold the plate on the spot.
I’m still trying to locate this plate today, you mentioned it was registered to a Porsche, supposedly over the years it’s also been spotted on a Land Rover in Melbourne, if you ever do spot it, please let me know as it would mean a lot to my father, one of his most regrettable sales!”
Scroll down for some great historic photos of this plate.
Images:
Porsche Boxster – 19 March 2015
Brooklands Riley – Mid 1970s
Brooklands Riley – Mid 1970s
Riley 2 1/2 – Late 1960s
If you have more photos of the Victorian heritage number plate ’45’ please let us know.