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New Ford Focus - oldgit
Was following a new shape Focus for several miles today and its number plate was of the format AB02XYZ (not the actual number, of course).

How could this be registered with a 2002 plate when the car was only introduced last year i.e. 2004. I suppose the owner could have asked for an old plate to be transferred to his/her new car.
Am I overlooking something obvious here?
New Ford Focus - DavidHM
No, it's what you've described in all probability, e.g., Zachary Zimmerman has ZZ02ZZZ or whatever (completely made up plate) and thinks that we'll notice that more than the fact that he's made his car look three years older than it is.

Actually you might notice that plate but you know what I mean...
New Ford Focus - Blue {P}
Yeah, the XYZ bit will probably have some sort of personal meaning to the owner, there's no way there were even prototype models registered back in 02, they'd only just facelifted the old model at that point!

Blue