Regio Esercito

In this picture, snapped in August 1932, you can see, even if not so clearly, a tank Fiat 3000; anyway in the image the plate of the vehicle is very clear: RE 138 A. What's odd in it is the letter "A" in the last position: in fact this was used to identify the tanks of the Servizio Militare, so until 1927, but it's uncommon on the plates of Regio Esercito and other pictures of tanks of 1935 don't have it any more. Moreover you can notice, though probably with a little imagination, the flame between the letters RE and the number: that's been in use on all the armoured vehicles since then!

This picture is taken from the "L'Illustrazione Italiana" of 1932 and I want to thank very much Marcello Taverna who sent it to me with all these details.

Plastic plates

On the back of this picture it's said that it shows the delivery of the first license plate made of plastic and for this reason it was taken for sure in 1963. Guglielmo Evangelista told me that the number "RE 66715" matches perfectly with his data of that year and moreover corroborates the facts that plastic plates didn't started being issued from a round number.

Plastic was used for all the Italian plates from 1963 until 1985: it's cheaper, but it's also weaker and with time changes its shape more easily, so this was probably the reason for its abandoning.

Many special thanks to Roberto Pola who sent me this picture.

Military Operations in Spain

This picture shows a truck with an anti-aircraft battery ready to fire against the enemies used during the civil war in Spain. The meaning of ATV is "Artiglieria Truppe Volontarie" e this was one of the codes used on the Italian vehicles in Spain.

Many thanks to Marcello Taverna for both the picture and his explanation of it.

Firemen

In this picture you can see a group of motorcycles of the Firemen driving in column on the road. Among them it's easy to see the license plate with the number 1 on the right side of the image. The Firemen had motorcycles up to the end of the 1960s, so today it's impossible to see VF license plates for motorcycle on the roads.

I want to thank Ernesto Vitetti very much for this very nice picture.

NA 100000

This interesting picture shows the celebration in Naples made when the plate NA 100000 was reached and, as far as I know, this happened on December the 3^rd, 1955. In the next thirty years, until 1994 when the new numbering system was introduced, it was reached the number NA W63408 (see table), for a total of 3063408 issued license plates!

In this web site you can find also the picture of the delivery of the plate with number 100000 in Livorno to an ATAM bus, done on July 5^th 1969: click here to see it.

Fiume

The history of the plates of Fiume is very interesting because it changed many times in few years. Before 1919 the town was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire and thus Austro-Hungarian plates were issued, with the letters F followed bu a number. The plate that you can see in the picture is one of these and so it is not an Italian plate. Later, from 1919 to 1924 Fiume was a free town and I don't know anything about the plates used in those years, though it's likely that special plates were issued as it happened in Trentino and in Trieste. In 1924 Fiume became Italian and took the number 76 (see table). In 1927 the province code was introduced on Italian plates: at the beginning the letters FU were in use, but in 1930 they were replaced by FM (see table): you can find a couple of pictures of these last plates in the page about disappeared provinces. After the Second World Was Fiume became part of Yugoslavia and so Italian plates haven't been used any more.

Notice that in the picture the letter H is the code for the Austro-Hungarian empire (see the page about ovals): in the first vehicle it's printed directly on the plate, while in the vehicle that is far you can clearly see an oval near by the plate.

I want to thank Igor Muskardin very much for this interesting picture!

Provisional plate of the Red Cross

This picture was taken in 1969 in Campomorone during the inauguration of a new ambulance of the Italian Red Cross. Even if the picture is not very clear, you can notice that the plate mounted on the vehicle is a normal Italian provisional plate (10579 A4) instead of a CRI plate. The reason is that at that time there usually was a long delay before the CRI plates were issued and the Red Cross hasn't got any provisional plate of its own.

I want to thank so very much Roberto Pola for this picture.

Carabinieri in Libya

This picture shows a motorcycle of Carabinieri used in the Italian colony of Libya. I don't know much about this kind of plates, when they were issued, in which regions or towns were used and so on, but I decided to add this picture, though the quality is poor, because I think that it's vey interesting and at the same time funny!

Many thanks to Ernesto Vitetti for this image!

Government of Libya

This picture shows a Fiat 2800 CMC Torpedo Militare of 1938, used in the Italian colony of Libya. This kind of vehicle was never sold to any private person and was only used by the government, as the plate also shows. This is the only picture of such plate that I ave got and I don't know any detail about them.

The picture is taken from the book "Le fuoristrada Fiat" written by Alessandro Sannia and I want to thank the author very much for sending it to me.