You may remember I've been trying to spot all the pairsof letters at the start of a modern vehicle registration plate.
AA AB AC AD AE AF AG AH AJ AK AL AM AN AO AP...
BA BB BC BD BE BF BG BH BJ BK...
CA CB...
...
........YJ YK YL YM YN YO YP YR YS YT YU YV YW YX YY
There are a heck of a lot of them.
You might expect there to be 26×26 = 676 possible combinations, but the letters I, Q and Z are never used (for alphanumeric confusion reasons) which shrinks the list to 23×23 = 529.
Also four pairs have never been issued. FO and FU are banned for sweary reasons and NF for fascist reasons. The only other blacklisted pair is MN, which has long been reserved for the Isle of Man but the IoM has never taken up the DVLA's kind offer. This reduces the list to 529 - 4 = 525.
Also XA-XF are reserved for exports. You don't expect to see these on UK roads so I've discounted them too. This reduces the list to 525 - 6 = 519.
Well the good news is that I've finally seen all 519 of them, and it only took 22½ months.
I started on 1st December 2023. It was a bit of a torrent to start with because most of the pairs are quite common, especially those starting with L (London), E (Essex) and G (Kent). Pairs starting with B (Birmingham) and S (Scotland) are also frequent because they're issued across populous parts of the country.
By the end of December I'd seen all the As, Bs, Ds, Ks, Ls, Ss and Ys and was already up to 433 out of 519, that's 83% of the overall total. By the end of January I'd added all the Es, Fs, Hs, Js, Ts and Ws and was up to 480 (92%). And by the end of February I had the Cs and Ms under my belt and had reached 495 (95%). How difficult could the last 24 pairs be? Very, as it turned out.
The catch is that some pairs are considerably rarer than others.
i) 4 letters aren't used as regional identifiers. You'll only find J, T, U and X at the start of a personalised plate, not a bogstandard forecourt-bought vehicle.
ii) Some geographic regions don't issue all the pairs they have ownership of (so for example Reading seemed very reticent to release RC, RG, RL, RM and RP).
iii) Some letter pairs are held back so the DVLA can make some money out of them. The definitive list is AH, AL, BY, DR, ED, EH, GO, HO, MO, MR, MS, MY, OK, ON, OR, OS, RU, SU, VD, VW and WC.
I was fairly amazed when I finally saw a VD, but I've since seen several more.
After six months I was missing ten pairs (NR, RL, UE/UT/UV, VH/VJ/VL and XG/XY).
After nine months I was missing four pairs (UE/UT/UV and VH).
After twelve months I was still missing four pairs, that's how tough this game is.
UT finally turned up on an Audi in Crewe in March 2025.
VH finally turned up outside the Texaco garage on Bow Road in April 2025.
UE finally turned up on a Toyota outside Bromley-by-Bow station in June 2025.
And at the weekend I finally spotted UV on a Volkswagen in Ilford.
Obviously I got off the bus to take a photo.
The car was parked outside a block of flats on Ilford Lane. I've been down this road several times in the last two years but never seen it before, so maybe it was a one-off visitor. It starts with U so it has to be a personalised plate. The digits and last three letters appear to form the word LOSER. I'm still speculating why someone would pay good money for this particular plate, but I thank them deeply because otherwise I'd still be playing, almost 700 days later.
I have finally spotted all 519 pairs of letters at the start of a modern UK vehicle registration plate, and it only took 22½ months.
