40 year old cars info.

[mark1gls]

My Mk1 will be 40 years old this year, it was registered 31st August 1978.

I believe I will no longer need to tax or MOT the car once it’s 40 years old, my MOT runs out 25 July 2018 and tax is due 1st August.
So could I use the car till the MOT and then tax runs out and take it off the road till 1st September (about 6weeks) apply for historic vehicle and then get the car back on the road and save my self the cost of road tax?
Or will I have to wait till January 2019 to get it back on the road?

It just seems silly to pay for road tax to a few weeks driving....

Any thoughts info?

[james butler]

i tried to tax exempt my datsun (registered feb 1978) in march and was told i couldnt because it has to be registered pre jan 1978.
Vehicles exempt from vehicle tax
You can apply to stop paying vehicle tax if your vehicle was built before 1 January 1978. You must tax your vehicle even if you don’t have to pay.

If you don’t know when your vehicle was built, but it was first registered before 8 January 1978, you can still apply to stop paying vehicle tax.

mine had to be made before jan to be even able to register in feb and was narrowed down to sometime mid to late 1977, unfortunately this also isn't enough info to prove its historic.
if you have a day month year build date you can apply that way to get historic tax but unfortunatley you reg date means you will have to wait till jan next year like me.

mot wise im still not sure on the legislation.
https://www.gov.uk/historic-vehicles

[james butler]

i think you can only be mot exempt if your currently tax exempt

[mark1gls]

Thanks for that James.
I do believe the car has to be registered tax exempt to get it MOT exempt.

So I’ll have to wait till Jan 2019 to get it tax exempt, guess I’ll just buy 6 months tax this time.