CY 3: One of Swansea’s First Motor Cars
CY 3: One of Swansea’s First Motor Cars CY3 Number Plate credit - Swansea Museum The registration CY 3 is not merely an early Swansea number plate—it is a rare survivor from the very beginnings of British motoring. When the Motor Car Act 1903 came into force on 1 January 1904, it introduced the first national system of vehicle registration. Each county or county borough was assigned a unique identifying code, and Swansea, then a county borough with its own administrative authority, received CY . Registrations were issued sequentially from CY 1 onward. This means that CY 3 belongs to the first handful of motor cars ever legally recorded in Swansea. These earliest numbers were typically taken by prominent local figures—industrialists, engineers, doctors, and businessmen who were wealthy enough, and curious enough, to embrace the new and untested world of the motor car. Among these pioneering owners was Alexander George Moffat , a name that appears consistently in early Swansea m...
