As my MGB GT sailed through the MOT without any advisories, again, I’ve had a few good, local runs out with the MG this early summer, including two days around Cape Cornwall doing some seascape painting ‘en plein air’ as they say, as here in the far west of Cornwall we escaped the thunderstorms that affected the rest of the country. I just need to do some routine maintenance on the MGB, such as change the brake and clutch fluids and, all being well, we are fit for the long trek to Skipton in North Yorkshire in September for the annual B Register weekend.

Following on from what I was saying in July about changing to historic vehicle status, Roger Cooper has gone through the process with his GT. It seems to be more straightforward than he initially found. He wrote as follows: Just had a word with DVLA about what to do. I can deal with sending them the V5C and the form V10 but they also want an extract from either the manufacturer’s records of production (our MGB Register perhaps) or an extract from the Glass’s Guide check book. If we don’t have the data on the Register and I can’t get hold of a Glass’s Guide easily I look like I have a problem. So! Does the info you are publishing give us a way round this? DVLA do not have this info on file – only the date of registration. Granted that will be a later date than date of manufacture but they don’t see it that way.

I suggested: Date of original registration is apparently sufficient or date of build if known. Aren’t the records for build dates in the Archive department at the British Motor Museum, Gaydon?

Roger: I shall have to try Gaydon. As I bought the car second hand I do not have a date of original registration or a build date – only the bill of sale from the local garage where we bought it in 1979 – five years after original sale somewhere in Bristol. I do however have a tax disc dated July 28 1976 from Swansea – that, by July 31 this year, should be enough to make it 40 years old. Perhaps that is good enough?

However the solution was easier than DVLA were making out. Following the DVLA lady’s advice I popped into my local Post Office to ask for a form V10, only to be told they are no longer relevant and so they could not supply. The lady asked why I wanted one and when I said I wished to change the MGB from a taxed vehicle to HISTORIC classification she said all I needed to do was take the V5C to her and she would do the rest – so I went back with the V5C and she did just that, giving me a receipt to confirm she had done it and tearing off half the form to send to DVLA, returning the other half to me. She said it would take two to three weeks and that DVLA would automatically refund any tax outstanding for the rest of the year.
Could not have been easier, so why the lass in Cardiff wanted so many impossible proofs of this that and the other I do not know – the lady in the Post Office said NOTHING was required except the V5C.
So, there you have it. The definitive way to change the status of your vehicle to historic once it is 40 years old- tried and tested by Roger.