suspect school boy is too young to remember!
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Espada III - well if you have a family and need a Lamborghini, what else do you drive?
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I seem to remember then being silver letters/numbers on a black background.
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The french started using UK style white/yellow number plates in the early seventies.
Yellow headlights; well I can't remember when those stopped, but they were prevalent until the late eighties. Had to put on a yellow paint or clipover adaptors if you took you UK car to France.
Fond memories of standing around in Dover's ferry assembly area c1973 trying to work out how to attach the adaptors to Dad's Hillman Hunter.
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If i remember my triva correctly, the yellow headlights were brought in during the second world war, to differentate French resistance cars from German staff cars on the road.
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Something that puzzles me with French number plates.
A few are silver on a red background. Otherwise seem to be normal- why?
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I wasna fu but just had plenty.
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Something that puzzles me with French number plates. A few are silver on a red background. Otherwise seem to be normal- why? -- I wasna fu but just had plenty.
Temporary plates (eg for short term imports). If you look closely they have an mm/yy expiry date at the end. There's also a yellow on green sequence, purpose not known.
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Bromptonaut,
Thanks for solving that mystery. They always semed to be on older cars. I knew that you have to change plates if you move to a different departement.
The really temporary plates I've seen on brand new cars in France seemed to be written in chalk!
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I wasna fu but just had plenty.
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For GWS,
They also appear on new cars [ as in straight from the factory ] when leased by those resident outside the E.U. When I take a driving tour in Europe, I [ notionally ] buy a brand new Pug tax free, and [ notionally ] Peugeot buy it back later on for a slightly reduced price. The only hard cash that changes hands is the difference. The red plates indicate that it is a tax-free vehicle [ notionally ] for export within 6 months. The paper war with French Customs and Excise is a bit daunting, but the local N.Z. Peugeot [ and Renault ] Agents are well versed in ploughing through it.
So, fellow Backroomers, if you see a new French car with red plates, be careful. It is probably being driven by a Furriner from the Colonies. [ 4 years ago, I took one the UK from France as part of my touring.]
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>>If i remember my triva correctly, the yellow headlights were >>brought in during the second world war, to differentate French >>resistance cars from German staff cars on the road.
A myth, I'm afraid. It's called 'selective yellow' and is done by removing the blue component giving a very pure yellow light.
Yellow lamps were claimed to improve visibility and reduce dazzle, particularly back-glare in fog or falling snow, and certainly, when I lived in France a good few years ago, I imagined them to be more restful. We had yellow foglamps on sale here for many years, for the same reason.
There's something about it at tinyurl.com/7tcs8
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Which reminds me. Why, then, do we now have this passion for blue lights?
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Schoolboy...
My front foglights are painted yellow, it's kind of my trademark as i've had many cars to which have had foglights and i always paint them with yellow glass paint. Trouble is i very rarely use them, it's really for show.
I've yet to see any Mondeo (which is my current car) with yellow lights.
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I feel quite nostalgic for the yellow French lamps. White lamps seem to take away some of the 'Frenchness' of the country, like Maigret's traction avant Citroen and M. Hulot's Trafic.
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I feel quite nostalgic for the yellow French lamps. White lamps seem to take away some of the 'Frenchness' of the country, like Maigret's traction avant Citroen and M. Hulot's Trafic.
I like the French yellow headlights so much I've tracked down some selective yellow covers, that clip over a H4 60/55 watt halogen bulb. The results are brilliant: road signs seem brighter and cats' eyes light up much further away. Also, other drivers NOTICE you, as your car looks different! in short, I cannot comprehend why the French allowed the (so called) European Union bully them into surrendering this uniquely French phenomenon!
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The yellow lights looked cool.Regarding the EU i don't think anybody bullied the French they are part of it.
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I feel quite nostalgic for the yellow French lamps. White lamps seem to take away some of the 'Frenchness' of the country, like Maigret's traction avant Citroen and M. Hulot's Trafic.
30 years or so ago, I used to swap the UK clear halogens bulbs of my 2CV for the French yellow ones. They were easy enough to buy in France.
And the bulb holder could be taken out out of the socket, rotated about 20° and refitted in to secondary cut-outs, converting the UK LH dip to centre dip. Lovely!
As you say it's one of the French traditions they have yielded up to the EU. I wonder what they got in exchange…
Edited by BigJohnD on 19/09/2010 at 22:28
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The 2CV good memories my brother had one big picture of a duck on both doors.I could have bought one for 600 pound already bought a VW beetle,Still regret not buying the 2CV did't have the cash.Aircooled starting handle.
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Many people claimed that yellow headlights were better in fog or poor visibility-possibility they were but the fact was that they reduced light output by about 25%.When they ceased to be a legal requirement-they were not banned,they disappeared almost overnight from "old" French cars.
Edited by jc2 on 20/09/2010 at 10:58
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>If i remember my triva correctly, the yellow headlights were brought in during the second world war, to differentate French resistance cars from German staff cars on the road. <
And once the Germans realised, to make them an easier target, presumably.
Mind you, if you believe the French these days, the Resistance drove around in Maigret Citroens with FFI painted on the doors.
I think not.
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I agree re the nostalgic aspect. Back in the 70s, there was a real feeling of "coolness" I guess, and exotica about the French yellow headlights.
I've managed to get a set of yellow 45/40w bulbs for my (Dutch) DAF 33's Cibié headlights - the same as on 2CVs etc - which also have the little "switch" to convert to LHD or RHD.
Obviously, at MoT time, the white ones go back in!
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It was around 1992 IIRC that the "phares jaunes" finally started to disappear into automotive history. I remember my white (=foreign) lights - perfectly aligned for driving on the right, I should add - getting the last angry flash of Gallic indignation around that time.
As to number plates, it was also in the early 90s that black on white (or yellow at the rear) became standard number plate colours in France, and a few years before the new (April 2009 onwards) sequences were introduced, black on white front AND rear became the norm. (I'd love to know why this can't be done in the UK - if there's one thing that makes a UK car stand out and more likely to be targeted, it's those black on yellows!)
As to the new number plate sequences (AB123CD, similar to Italy, and with optional stick-on regional identifiers), all cars in France are undergoing a four year period of registration renewal, so that a new car, or a change of ownership, or the now compulsory MoT, means a new registration. It means that (i) les flics will be able to see when a car is due its MoT - and can do some roadside checks to make up the monthly quota; and(ii) it will actually be impossible to tell a car's age purely from the registration.
As to what the French got in return for agreeing to go white - billions and trillions of EU subsidies is the short answer to that as we all know!
Edited by Bilboman on 22/09/2010 at 00:48
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