Quote:
Originally Posted by davyboy
I'm not sure that there would have been any tax or type approval reasons for registering them in N.I., it's possible they were landed there by a prep company such as Sydney Meeke or Kenny McKinstry... quite a few of the Manta and Ascona 400s were N.I. registered by Meeke's I think.
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I wondered about that- I'd assumed that Bill Blydenstein was the main source of the 240RS in Europe, in which case it seemed odd that the majority of UK-registered examples (including some of the European privateers as well as the UK/Irish ones) were registered in N.I, or occasionally on the Isle of Man, if they were being built and prepped at Shepreth.
As you said, quite a few of the GMDS Mantas were N.I registered- and thinking about it, a lot of the David Sutton/Audi UK Quattros wore Isle of Man plates...
Just been looking at 240RS pics on around the web, and found something interesting in a description of the ex-Ian Roberton car
FIW9125 (he seems to have had two or three) which probably accounts for this:
'The first keeper of this car was Blydenstein Racing, registered at an office address in Northern Ireland, and there is a goverment document supporting this...
Thereby confirming a link to that prestigious tuning company, if only as the importer...
In the 1980's, the Northern Irish Registration Office wasn't linked to DVLA in the UK, as it is now, and the DVLA V5 Registration document doesn't begin listing owners until 1989...'
http://www.nissan-240rs.com/RHD_Niss..._Rallycar.html
If Blydenstein had an office in N Ireland, it makes perfect sense that a lot of the cars had N.I. reg numbers, as they were presumably imported via there