Rolls press cars -TU

[tali1]

Rolls press cars feature usually TU private plates 2000TU/1900TU/1800TU/3500TU is there any significance with the numbers and TU -(The Ultimate?)
I did ask rolls many years back my letter and they replied simply confirming what i said "yes we do use those plates" - without elaborating any significance!

[Balmoral Green]

They had a set of the TU plates when the Mulsanne Turbo was launched in 1982. They still have them and can still be seen on company vehicles. Bentley Motors now of course, not Rolls Royce. As it happens, i've just bought an original add from 1991, which shows a red Turbo R with the plate 1900 TU.

[tali1]

yes BG i am fully aware of that- but as i asked in my post do they have any significance?- the numbers and TU?

[V12Aston]

Cheshire registrations (eg Crewe). As far as I am aware, that is the only significance.

[Balmoral Green]

I always thought that TU was for TUrbo, and that the numbers are just nice neat round numbers. But the TU plate set goes back to the early seventies and they pre-date the turbo cars (although the turbo development was done back in 1973 on a Shadow). Maybe they are just a nice set of plates, and don't have any significance, any reason for thinking they mean something?

Edited by Balmoral Green on Tuesday 11th September 16:47

[Hobbit123]

Is it not something to do with the reason that all car companies use letters that can be photographically reversed to show left/right hand drive to suit?

So, you can use H, M, V, X, A, W etc, but not N, P, C?

[Balmoral Green]

2000TU/1900TU/1800TU/3500TU

UT0081 is the only one that will work with the photo reversed.

[Hobbit123]

Oh yeah. I always get confused by numbers.
I guess it could just be something that started out as a coincidence and became tradition, like the organ stops on the dash, Spirit of Ecstacy and so on.

[tali1]

Balmoral Green said:

I always thought that TU was for TUrbo, and that the numbers are just nice neat round numbers. But the TU plate set goes back to the early seventies and they pre-date the turbo cars (although the turbo development was done back in 1973 on a Shadow). Maybe they are just a nice set of plates, and don't have any significance, any reason for thinking they mean something?

Edited by Balmoral Green on Tuesday 11th September 16:47

reckon , possibly camargue was first to have one in 1975 - but no turbo connection there
as for significance , well , porsche use 911 on their fleets and bentley use WO - makes sense, but these TUs seem conspicuous and regular and wondered why not stick with standard age plate?

Edited by tali1 on Thursday 13th September 20:37

[markmullen]

I will ask my mate, his dad was chairman of RR Bentley for a while, I am sure he will be able to shed some light on it.

[Thorny]

“The ‘TU’ series was originally issued in Cheshire. Rolls-Royce and Bentley had several in this series which they used on their factory demonstrators and for the cars in their catalogues, because these numbers didn’t show the year of manufacture.

[Micknall]

There's nothing significant about our 'TU'-suffixed number plates, I'm afraid. TU used to be the regional identifier for Cheshire-registered cars, and the Crewe factory is obviously in that county.

As someone mentioned, we now have 1800 TU, 1900 TU, 2000 TU and 20 TU attached to our press cars, as well as 1WO (..some significance, there!) and various others. Wherever possible, we like to retain these numbers which have appeared on so many landmark Bentleys from the past.

Simon Hucknall
PR Manager - Product
Bentley Motors Limited

[tali1]

Micknall said:

There's nothing significant about our 'TU'-suffixed number plates, I'm afraid. TU used to be the regional identifier for Cheshire-registered cars, and the Crewe factory is obviously in that county.

As someone mentioned, we now have 1800 TU, 1900 TU, 2000 TU and 20 TU attached to our press cars, as well as 1WO (..some significance, there!) and various others. Wherever possible, we like to retain these numbers which have appeared on so many landmark Bentleys from the past.

Simon Hucknall
PR Manager - Product
Bentley Motors Limited

Thanks for that, also discovered a relatively large number of Bentleys feature the W0 plates , only 2WO, 8WO and 40WO are non Bentley

[stevebedford1969]

tali1 said:

Micknall said:

There's nothing significant about our 'TU'-suffixed number plates, I'm afraid. TU used to be the regional identifier for Cheshire-registered cars, and the Crewe factory is obviously in that county.

As someone mentioned, we now have 1800 TU, 1900 TU, 2000 TU and 20 TU attached to our press cars, as well as 1WO (..some significance, there!) and various others. Wherever possible, we like to retain these numbers which have appeared on so many landmark Bentleys from the past.

Simon Hucknall
PR Manager - Product
Bentley Motors Limited

Thanks for that, also discovered a relatively large number of Bentleys feature the W0 plates , only 2WO, 8WO and 40WO are non Bentley

1900TU is in the 50 Cent / Justin Timberlake video.

The Flying Spur is very nice, but have to say there are other good things to view as well!!!!!!

see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Na4x2Uwflmg 

Edited by stevebedford1969 on Thursday 1st November 13:14

[tali1]

1900TU is in the 50 Cent / Justin Timberlake video.

stevebedford1969 said:

The Flying Spur is very nice, but have to say there are other good things to view as well!!!!!!

see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Na4x2Uwflmg

well spotted but the other "nice things to a view" are a clever distraction from an appallingly bland tune

[deltashad]

Drove past Flying Spur in Central Scotland yesterday with registration 20TU. Just wanted to check if it was a press car....

[Balmoral Green]

tali1 said:

possibly camargue was first to have one in 1975 - but no turbo connection there

As it happens there is. There was to be a Bentley Camargue Turbo, the turbo engine was originally planned to go into it rather than the SZ, and this was some considerable time in advance of the Turbo'd SZ. One car was built and extensively tested.

[2woody]

there were also other "TU" registered cars.

They are indeed nothing more special than the local Cheshire registration. I seem to remember a lot of HTU, RTU, etc cars as well as just the "TU"-only registrations.

Ironically, the first "experimental" car I was given was registered "STU"

[maxicherokee]

i heard that it meant "technical upgrades" and that those vehicles had been tweaked, for optimum performance figures. after all, they were the press cars. i wouldn't push my new rolls or bentley dangerously, just to prove them wrong, would you?

[2woody]

maxicherokee said:

i heard that it meant "technical upgrades" and that those vehicles had been tweaked, for optimum performance figures. after all, they were the press cars. i wouldn't push my new rolls or bentley dangerously, just to prove them wrong, would you?

sorry, but no.

If you collected your car from the factory and it was registered for you then it would almost always end up with a "something-T-U" number plate on it. HTU being the most common from memory.