USA SIZE BUT UK LEGAL LICENCE PLATE

[Maaarrghk]

Rover got away with it because the letters/numbers are of the correct size and font and the rest of the plate is bigger than the legal minimum requirement.

There are also laws governing the minimum distance from the edges of the lettering to the edges of the plate - I used to trim my bike plates down to these minimum sizes.

There is a local parcel delivery service (Ripponden & District) in my area who have used silver on black plates on all their wagons for at least the last 20 years.

[Mitsuru]

The MOT testers guide and manuals
Have a looksy to what it says about number plates...:
http://www.motinfo.gov.uk/htdocs/m4s06000301.htm

[OneCarefulOwner]

jimmyy - what maaarghkk said. My Lexus also has larger plates, and there's other cars with larger custom-sized plates as well - Jags & Range Rovers for example.

Unfortunately that MoT site doesn't include the full description of what is & isn't legal, it just states that not being legal is a reason for rejection. I've been Googling to corroborate what I previously stated, and it looks like it used to be included on the V796 but isn't any more.

[TerryG]

The DVLA have a page on their site stating the requirements for a registration plate
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Motoring/Pe ... /DG_181503
and the penalties for not meeting them.

[Richard Moss]

The key fact here is that the car came with Euro-sized plate mounts. The only time it's legal to have USA/JDM sized plates with the motorcycle-sized font is if there's no room to mount a Euro-size plate. Retrofitting smaller mounts will still cause a fail.

Correct. A UK market car will have had EU/UK approved mounts and therefore must use the corresponding plates.