new insurance pains

[Adam Birch]

It won't be. If it's been off the road since before the historic class/sorn was introduced, you'd have to pay for your disc as it will still be PLG registered. To have the class changed on your logbook for your free tax disc, you'll have to MoT it & then take it to your local DVLA office for inspection, which will be Chelmsford in your case. I had this with our P4 which had been off the road for over twenty years when I bought her.
It's no problem, they'll check it's the car the logbook says it is & change the tax class & give you your free disc while you wait.

Thankyou very much for the info, I thought I'd have to send things off to the DVLA, but if they do it there and then, then that makes it a lot easier. Also Chelmsford isn't too far away.

Regarding 1st cars again, I have had the privilege of driving someone else's chevette, and it wasn't bad. Of course it was on private land. And I have heard quite a lot that the acclaims are fairly good as well. It's not that I don't want a P6 as a first car - I do. The plan would be that when I pass my test, the first car I take out for a drive would be my 2000 auto. Thereafter, the daily would be a cheapy acclaim because of the fuel economy etc, and a point that my friend brought up - when I pass my test I will then be re-learning to drive (without someone next to me telling me what to do), and if I did that in an auto, I would then have to do the same yet again in a manual, so it's best to start off in a manual. But of course I most certainly am not going to get rid of my P6 - the plan (ctd) would be have it on low miles as a weekend car, to show, and have a relaxing automatic drive at the end of a working week, while I have the acclaim as a cheap daily runabout that gets all the use and abuse... Another point is that I do have 2 years to think about this - you never know, I may end up with enough money to have 2 SC P6's as first cars - I'd love that

Cheers, Adam.