What is the significance of stating the registration prefix on British cars?

Question

As i understand it, British cars are given a registation number at the point of assembly in GB. And I have seen huge prices paid for specific registation numbers. My question is, what is the significance of satating a registration perfix i.e. P reg, 51 reg etc, when asking a question about a car even whne the year of the car is stated in the question?

Answer 1

The registration number is assigned by DVLA when the car is first put on the road, not at assembly.

There are several schemes currently in use. The current scheme uses a prefix to identify the DVLA office that issued the number. The next two digits indicate the year and half year when the vehicle was first put in service.

Prior to the the current scheme, the first character identified the year it was placed in service. When the sceme was first started, it was a suffix but switched to a prefix when all letters of the alphabet had been used (aside from the few that are reserved for special purposes or are not used at all.)

Answer 2

for identity, security purpose