Following on from my other post I'm going to call the dvla tomorrow and see if I can obtain my number plate i want thats on a car in Lancashire somewhere. I need details of the car for this though - online insurance companies have told me its on a BMW 320i 2L but I'm after its colour too. Is there any way to find out colour from a registration? Do any online insurers show this information?

Not that I have seen. I think an HPI check would get you the colour, but I don't know whether just the reg number is enough for that.

Why do you want to know the colour? You going to drive around Lancashire looking for it?

It's not necessarily still in Lancashire tho. The plate just says where you registered it originally.

Don't you know any policemen? They're normally handy for that kind of stuff.

When I called the dvla they said they would provide me with the owners name and address if I gave them £3 and the car details. I can give them all but the colour which I'm not sure I'll need but best to be prepared in case they ask.

Go for black or silver, it's a 50/50 risk!

Yes its scary how easy its supposed to be! I 'll see how i get on tomorrow with my 50/50 guess (but it might be red/maroon too!)

Do you have an Orange phone? If so then you can do a basic vehicle check for free on their "Orange World" WAP service.

Here's what it says for mine:
J758LRV
Make: CHEVROLET GMC
Colour: BLACK AND WHITE
Vehicle engine size: 5736
First registered: 16/09/2002

PM me the reg if you don't have access.

edit: I would be *seriously* surprised if they give you their name/address if you say that you want to buy their registration!

Gareth

PM sent. Thanks!

When I lived in Utah, that information could be easily had by just going down to the MVD, giving the plate number, and paying $2.

Illustrative story:

A friend and I saw an extraordinarily cute girl walking around campus one day. Being complete and total retards, we didn't talk to her, but just tried to follow her around. We tried to see where she'd go, but eventually lost the trail. We went to the same place the next week to see if she'd turn up again, and sure enough, she did. This time, we followed her to where she got into a car and drove off. We wrote down the license plate number, went to the MVD, got her name number and address, and went home and called her. We pretended to be doing a survey for some psych class, but eventually let on that we had just thought she was cute and wanted to call. Oddly, she didn't seem to be very bothered by that.

We all became sort-of-friends, and she went on to date our roommate for a few months. It's only now, several years later, that I look back at this and realize how incredibly creepy we were and that other people go to jail for that kind of thing. That's Utah, the naïveté capital of the U.S.

Last I checked, Utah had changed their system since then so that you could opt out of the public availability of the info at the time of registration. Many other states had the information just as easily accessible, though.

Correct me if I'm wrong (Crazy Melki) but don't they have a book in Switzerland with the name and address for every number plate?