AJS & Matchless Owners Club

If the frame and engine number are registered with DVLA they have a procedure for getting a V5. It's the lost document procedure and they write to the last recorded owner to give them a chance to challenge the transfer if stolen. Takes a couple of weeks and 5 years ago cost me £25. Worth contacting them as you will get the original reg. Alternatively if it does not appear on the DVLA computer the procedure to register is pretty simple with the help of the dating officer and the club records but you are likely to get an age related number.

if you dont have any old documents , old tax disc or evidence of that bike being a particular registration number , you may get the old number back if it has not been reissued .
otherwise if you have no paperwork at all i think you need to fill in a V627/1 form and if they are ok with everything they will issue an age related number .
i think to get the original number though you must have a certain number of major parts on the bike , ie frame , forks, engine ,wheels etc but i dont know much more than this as i have only just started procedure to get a v5c for a bike i have .

the 627/1 form is for a vehicle built up from parts so when i contacted them first i explained that i had not made a bike up from parts and told them which parts were the original machine and which parts i had put on myself , ie in my case it was engine and seat/tank from an earlier machine .
it is confusing filling the form out but basically you need to show if parts used are those from the original machine , are new or original [origin] .
if you have a reg number you know was on the bike then all the major parts that are the original bike will have the reg number of the old bike in the box where is says origin .

they will require photos of bike and also photos of engine number and frame number .

if you had too many major parts that were a later date then you may get an age related number for the year of the latest major parts used , ie if it was after 1962 i guess it will end up with a year letter .

the reg number issued will also most likely be non transferrable which means you cannot transfer it to another machine nor sell it .

one of my bikes i bought had its original reg sold only a few years ago and then the owner re registered it and got age related plate , i have all the MOTs going back for many years for the old number and its not nice to know a machine that was on the road had lost its original number due to someone being able to sell it for monetary gain .

i was thinking of writing to dvla to ask them to make all my reg numbers of my bikes as non transferrable, then i would know they would not get removed from the bikes they were originally with .

not everyone is attached to their bikes in the same way unfortunately .

g5wqian wrote:if you dont have any old documents , old tax disc or evidence of that bike being a particular registration number , you may get the old number back if it has not been reissued .
otherwise if you have no paperwork at all i think you need to fill in a V627/1 form and if they are ok with everything they will issue an age related number .
i think to get the original number though you must have a certain number of major parts on the bike , ie frame , forks, engine ,wheels etc but i dont know much more than this as i have only just started procedure to get a v5c for a bike i have.
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Using a V627/1 is not the route to go trust me. Use the Clubs dating service he is a very nice chap.

Speculating on what may or may not be the procedure and posting what worked years ago isn't very useful. I've recently used the club dating service to get a V5 for a bike of the marque that didn't have one, and it all went smoothly. I was lucky in having the buff logbook though.
We are lucky that the authorities recognise the club as a trusted means to manage these issues. Use the dating service, simples!!
Regards kk

Roy has hit the nail on the head, bike with no docs, have frame / engine no's confirmed etc., photo's of same plus left ,right side of bike
Follow dating officers info, process is simple. This is the method I used , Roy was most helpful.

there is a remote possibility that if you know the original reg no and the issueing authority still has records , a certified extract from the original records can be produced DVLA may allow it to be retained on a non transferable basis. Kent has some searchable records still. Kind regards