In the UK our cars license plates (reg plates) tell the year and half year the car was purchased in. It is a bit of a rough guide as to a cars actual age as a car is known as the year it is sold in and not the year it was produced. This might be a bit confusing for US folks. For arguments sake, lets say for instance a 2005 build year car sits on a dealers lots until 2007 for some strange reason, when it is sold, it is a 2007 or 07 plate if sold in the first 6 months of 07. I had a classic mini and it was a 51 plate 2nd half (5 in 51) of 2001 (1 in 51) even thought they stopped production well before that, it had sat at John Cooper Garages work shop for a while before being sold. Now that I have confused you all. (IE, my BMW MINI is LV06 on the plate for the first 4 digits so is a first half of 2006 car in terms of date sold) As minis sell quite quickly you can assume the year of the plate is roughly the year of manufacture, I happen to know mine was built in April 06 (on another tangent, do USA cars have the date of manufacture under the bonnet on a black sticker as ours do?)

Ah, now my question:

I was behind a 56 plate, thus a 2nd half of 2006 car and it had quite a different back end from mine, I thought at first it was a later turbo R56 and thus the different body style for that model but, I thought I could hear the S/C so it had to be an R53. The differences were a black grill type design on the lower valence with red reflectors and subtle bulges running down each C pillar on the plastic covering on the sides of the rear glass. Is this a package? a model design change or was it possibly a very early turbo car and i was hearing things?

Over here, it was 07 plate cars that were the later R56 models.

cheers. peter

 

The C pillar molding seems like a dead giveaway for the R56. The first gen cars had glass wrapping all the way around.

 

I don't recall seeing the production date anywhere under the bonnet, but it's definitely stamped on a plate on the driver's side (left side) doorjamb on the U.S. cars.

 

Definetly an R56. Turbos do make a sound too, albeit higher pitched (and in the case of the r56, quieter).

 

Yes, must have been a 56, I was so busy trying to follow it (why do we do this?) and study its butt...oh no, i hope it was a girl.

On my UK model there is a black sticker on the side of the area above the front LH wheel when the bonnet is up, it says (April 2006) Like a beer born on date. haha.

thanks folks. Peter