To commemorate the 150th anniversary of European settlement in Victoria, plates from late 1984 to 1985 bore the slogan Victoria – 150 Years across the bottom. It is a popular myth that the defective paint was caused by prisoners manufacturing the plates urinating in the paint mixture.
These plates are identifiable by their different embossed dies and vertical diamond separator (as opposed to Victoria's horizontal diamond).
This caused the rapid consumption of the plate stocks especially late in the F-series and some plates (those were starting with FVA-000 to FVZ-999 and FYA-000 to FYZ-999) were produced in Queensland to meet demand.
Due to the number of plates which were unidentifiable in photographs, all defective plates were recalled and new plates issued free of charge.
In the early 1990s, it was discovered that the reflective properties of many registration plates in the range from AAA-000 to EZZ-999, and the principally the C-series, were defective and this had coincided with the rapid introduction of traffic enforcement cameras in Victoria. Having exhausted the I-series plates, in November 1977, reflective green-on-white plates were introduced, beginning at AAA-000 and running to FZZ-999, and then skipping to a brief run of RAA-000 to RBZ-999 in 1994, bearing the slogan Victoria – Garden State at the bottom of the plate initiated by premier Rupert Hamer. This was only a temporary measure, naturally, as Victoria faced the same problem having proceeded through the I-series three years later. The earlier sequences did not, due to the I-series plates being made by two different manufacturers, who used different dies for the "I"). However, having reached the end of their Federal allotment of letters, Victoria in 1974 commenced from LZZ-999 to IAA-000 (in some later plate sequences, the capital I had noticeable staves to tell them apart from the number 1.
For the same reason, In 1964, Victoria skipped the I-prefix series and went straight from HZZ-999 to JAA-000. The letters "I" and "Q" were not issued in any combinations, due to these being easily mistaken for "1" and "O" or "0". The first three-lettered plate, GAA-000 was issued on 27 January 1953.
These had an embossed "Vic" above the plate's embossed characters in full length.įrom January 1953, owing to the Federal number plate system, Victorian plates switched to the three-letter, three-number standard: GAA-000 to HZZ-999, and JAA-000 to LZZ-999, coloured white lettering on a black background, and a "Vic" insert on the top of the plate. In 1972, the two-letter, three-number scheme was reintroduced as an optional, personalised plate style for cars. This format was later used for motorcycles. In 1939, Victoria switched to a two-letter, three-number scheme (AA-000 to ZZ-999) of which also bear "Vic" down the left-hand side. From 1930, "Vic" inserts were added vertically down the left-hand side of the plate. Initial Victorian plates, issued from 1910 to 1939, were in numerals only, from 1 to 285-000. Victorian registration plates are manufactured at Hopkins Correctional Centre in Ararat, Victoria. Like other Australian plates, these are usually particular to a vehicle, changing hands with it, and are generally permanent (yearly registration is required, however).
Registration plates have been issued in Victoria since 1910.