Don’t forget that from 20 May 2018, most classic cars in the UK over 40-years-old will no longer need an annual MOT inspection. I say ‘most’ as vehicles that have been ‘substantially changed’ in the last 30 years will still need an MOT inspection. The definition of substantially changed is available here. The 40 year exemption is a ‘rolling exemption’.

The official announcement by the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency is here. This means that all Rover P5’s and P5B’s that haven’t been substantially changed will be exempt, as they went out of production 45 years ago.

The owner doesn’t need to do anything – there’s no application or registration necessary, although you will need to declare that your vehicle meets the criteria whenever you tax your car (and as a ‘historic vehicle’ there is of course no cost for taxing your car either).

This raises a bit of a dilemma for owners and buyers of all classic cars, not just Rovers. While far from perfect, the MOT did at least provide some guidance on the general condition of a car, and could be a useful ‘second opinion’. While most people tended to treat the MOT test akin to a visit to the dentist, it wasn’t completely worthless.

It will be down to each owner and purchaser to decide how to deal with this. As an owner, it may still be useful to have the car inspected annually by a proficient person, and as a buyer it places more emphasis on checking a prospective car carefully. Our Rover P5 and P5B Buyers Guide may be useful here, and you can download the guide as a PDF below:

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Download the Rover P5 and P5B Buyers Guide (PDF)

(opens in a new tab, from there you can download as a PDF file)

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