F.A.Q.
1. What age does a car need to be to avail of vintage road tax rates?
Vintage road tax rates (currently €46 a year) apply once a car is thirty years old from its date of first registration. This does mean however that a car that was manufactured 32 years ago for example but not registered for another 3 years (perhaps sat in a showroom) will not yet be eligable. The rate is independant of engine size or emissions.
2. What age does a car need to be to avail of classic car insurance?
This is largely dependant on the policy of the insurance company. Most will allow a car onto a classic policy once it is 25 years or older but some as little as 15 or 20 years old dependant on the car. The best thing is to contact one of the companies or brokers listed in the directory on this site and ask specifically about your circumstances.
Click here for the ClassicCar.ie Directory
3. I have noticed that some cars are on ZV plates (vintage/classic?) while others have a "normal" registration. Are there any differences between the two types of registration?
1. ZV xxxxx eg ZV-2345
2. Year-County-xxxx eg 67-TN-345
It is your choice which you use, here are a few notes:
The ZV numbers are not consecutive countrywide, each county was allocated a batch of numbers, for example Tipperary are currently giving out four digit numbers on the ZV plates but Clare are five digit.
The 30 years runs from the Date of first registration in the first country of registration not the date of manufacture. So if you buy a 1977 MGB that was not registered and put on the road in the UK until 1980, it does not qualify as 30 years old for the purposes of registration here.
You are not limited to a ZV plate on an imported car, if you have an original irish car on "normal plates" and it is over 30 years old you can apply to change this to a ZV plate (not sure why you would want to) this however cannot be reversed.
For example my 68 Lotus was imported into Ireland in the late eighties and has the plate BZI 322 I could change this to a ZV plate if I wished.
VRT for these cars is €50 you can register them at any VRT office but in theory the number will be from the county that your PPS number is registered to.