Historic Vehicles – Drop MoT for all Historic Vehicles

Sir Greg Knight, who chairs the All Party Parliamentary Historic Vehicles Group, says he would like to see cars being spared both road tax and annual roadworthiness tests when they reach 40 years old.

There are 2 different date classes of historic vehicle. Those that are both tax and MoT exempt manufactured before 1960 and those that have to undergo a modern MoT but are nevertheless exempt from Vehicle Excise Duty and which were made 40 years ago, which is a rolling exemption. He sees no reason for this distinction and is urging the government to merge the two dates. All vehicles manufactured 40 years ago should be both exempt from Vehicle Excise Duty and MoT as part of the historic vehicle classification and that both dates should be a rolling exemption he says.

The government has already proposed exempting tax-exempt vehicles from roadworthiness tests – as it’s done with pre 1960 classics – when it implements the EU Roadworthiness Directive into UK Law in 2 years time.

The Classic aware campaign says it is still working to make sure classics are given safety inspections if the MoT system is replaced by a new roadworthiness test in 2018.

What is the EU Roadworthiness Directive. – It will abolish the current MoT and replace it with a new testing regime and must be implemented in the UK by May 2018, however it is up to the UK governement how it happens.

The FBHVC and the All Party Historic Vehicle Group want to ensure ‘no safe and roadworthy historic vehicle’ is banned from being used as a result, and have proposed a system where vehicles that reach tax-exempt status are also exempted from roadworthiness testing, similar to the arrangement for pre 1960 cars which was introduced 3 years ago.