Historic Vehicle Tax application.

[Steven Smith]

Relaying my attempts to obtain history vehicle status for my C4.

The following criteria from the DVLA website must be met:
Vehicles exempt from vehicle tax:
If your vehicle was built before 1 January 1986, you can stop paying vehicle tax from 1 April 2026.

My C4 is an 86 model but was built in November 1985 so it should be easy !!
So in February I contacted the club and obtained a dating letter which was posted off to the DVLA with the V5 document and photos of the car including the data plate showing the month and year of manufacturer as November 1985.
About 6 weeks later I received the unchanged V5 back, then the following week a letter stating the application for historic tax has been declined as I had provided insufficient evidence and they wanted an official letter or receipt from GM.

I left it for a few weeks pondering how to obtain the "evidence" they want.
I emailed the National Corvette Museum who put me in touch with The Vehicle Invoice team at the GM Archives (vehicleinvoice@alliedvaughn.com).
They claim to have every vehicle receipt since 1977, so for the sum of $50 they will send me what they have for my C4.
Twenty four hours later I was in receipt of the original sales invoice for my C4 from Chevrolet Motor Division to Pop Taylor Chevrolet Inc which shows it left the factory on the 13th November 1985.
This was printed out along with a copy of the receipt for the information and posted back to the DVLA with their letter asking for this information and the clubs dating letter again.
It was sent back to the DVLA on the 17th April, so far I have received nothing back but I am hopeful because at the MOT on Friday the year of manufacturer was showing as 1985 on the testers computer and the app I use to manage the family vehicle fleet, which gets information from the DVLA, now shows the manufacturer date as November 1985

 

[CaptainK]

I need to do something similar for my FTO. I am the original UK owner from import from Japan, and have some "unofficial" (aka not Mitsubishi themselves) paperwork that states it was built in the 3rd week of December 1994. But the DVLA have my FTO down as end of 1995 I think. Urgh. Issue is if I have to spend "X" amount of money getting official paperwork and so forth to prove it, then it may get up to the cost of a year's tax so may as well tax it and then Historic Vehicle it the year after

 

[Steven Smith]

I need to do something similar for my FTO. I am the original UK owner from import from Japan, and have some "unofficial" (aka not Mitsubishi themselves) paperwork that states it was built in the 3rd week of December 1994. But the DVLA have my FTO down as end of 1995 I think. Urgh. Issue is if I have to spend "X" amount of money getting official paperwork and so forth to prove it, then it may get up to the cost of a year's tax so may as well tax it and then Historic Vehicle it the year after

It was the principal for me rather than the money

 

[CaptainK]

Agreed. I'd like to do the same for mine too. Just don't know if I can.

 

[Steven Smith]

Just as an update, DVLA returned all my documents today and accepted the car was built in 1985, just back from taxing it for free at the post office.
What a nice feeling that was

 

[Nassau65]

Glad you got it all sorted.
It is strange to many that a car produced in say 1985 can be a 1986 as on a US title. I’ve had problems with the registration of a few cars that were nearly new on importation, classed as say 1986 but we were still in 1985 when trying to register them as 1986 cars.
At least back in the day the DVLA had regional offices that you could actually go to and see/speak to someone to sort things out. Unfortunately they are all long gone.