Ready for the Open Road

 After a good deal of argy-bargy the DVLA was eventually persuaded to register our beloved Geest three wheeler auto-truck for the King's Highway.   Huge amount of thanks to Tom Gilvear of the DVLA Swansea-respected Light Industrial Truck Club.

What a performance.  I nearly gave up a couple of times but glad I didn't.  We had to prove that the vehicle was actually a 'vehicle' and a 'historic' one at that.  Date of manufacture (1953) was always going to be hard to determine but that proved to be easier than its PLACE of manufacture.  The engine was of 1953 vintage but engines can be changed of course - though it is less likely that a newer engine would be swapped for an older one.  A Villiers engine number ending in /53 was just part of the case.  Another was that there were indications of age including the fact that the Geest company started making these things in 1953 so not only was it early it could have been among the earliest.  Would we get an age-related number or would we have to settle for a Q plate?

Then came an unexpected wobble and a refusal.   Had import duty been paid?  Had we applied to HMRC for a 'Notification of Vehicle Arrival', or NOVA?  It took a good deal of research and dedication on Tom Gilvear's part to convince the DVLA that despite Geest being a Dutch (banana) company, their UK company made these trucks in Spalding, Lincolnshire.  In went a fresh application but no NOVA, with evidence that Spalding was in England lest the Welsh based DVLA had any doubts.

Days turned into weeks then came one of those dreaded brown envelopes with a form  V5C in it, blandly announcing that number 715 XVX (1953 Essex actually) had been granted, followed a few days later by a much thicker bundle of documents form DVLA (my proof of identity, photographs and so on) telling me what I by then knew.   It also told me I would get my registration document Form V5C, which I already had, 'in the next 4 weeks'.  What a palaver.  It felt like a very British twist to that splendid American film Groundhog Day.

Well here's 715 XVX loaded with rubbish and ready for its first legal outing to Settle tip where I expect I shall be barred from entry as it's a lorry or something!

Just as an aside, readers of a certain generation my remember that transatlantic travel by boat was a sideline of the Geest banana company whose banana boats to'd and fro'd between the UK and the West Indies carrying fare paying passengers in some style I believe.  Here's the banana boat: