VehiclesDB

Switzerland license plate: Dealer pre-1977

Retired 1977 to 1980. Dealer plates for car, van, truck, bus, motorcycle, and trailer, issued by Bundesamt für Strassen (ASTRA) / kantonale Strassenverkehrsämter. One of 17 Switzerland license plates.

Switzerland license plate, Dealer pre-1977 (1977 to 1980), sample RQ 652577
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Format, years and the law

Format
LL 999999, for example RQ 652577 (L is any letter, 9 any digit)

Only the canton code is left to read. How these pre-1977 dealer, rental and test plates were specially marked sits in repealed instruments nobody has retrieved, and by 1 January 1980 every last one had to be off the road.

The format above is broad: a registration that fits it has the right shape, which does not show that this series issued it.

Years issued
1977 to 1980. No longer issued.
Vehicle class
Dealer: trade/garage plates bound to a business, not a vehicle. Issued for car, van, truck, bus, motorcycle, and trailer.
Colours
Characters #000000 Background #FFFFFF
Size
300 × 80 mm · every country's size
About this plate
What the period records is the WINDOW in which they remained lawfully on Swiss roads under the VZV's own transitional rule: from the VZV's entry into force on 1 January 1977 until the three-year exchange deadline expired on 1 January 1980.
About the format
A match says only "this string has the shape of a Swiss cantonal registration", never that it is a pre-1977 dealer plate.

Legal basis and sources

  1. VZV Art. 151 Abs. 4, verbatim: 'Die bisherigen Schilder für Mietwagen, Händler- und Versuchsschilder sind innerhalb dreier Jahre seit Inkrafttreten dieser Verordnung gegen Schilder mit besonderer Kennzeichnung... https://www.fedlex.admin.ch/eli/cc/1976/2423_2423_2423/de

This plate in your app

The series id is ch-dealer-pre1977. The API returns its format, validation, colours and designs with the rest of Switzerland's series:

curl -s https://vehiclesdb.com/api/v1/plates/ch \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $VEHICLESDB_API_KEY" \
  | jq '.series[] | select(.id == "ch-dealer-pre1977")'
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