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the_shadock

Hello,

what's the difference between a vehicle Serial Number and Registration Number? Why did the government assigned two different numbers to a single vehicle?

P-O

binder001 · ***Power User*** Offline Joined: Jan 25, 2006 Posts: 363

As I understand it the vehicle's serial number is assigned by or at the factory and represents that vehicle's position in production. It is a permanent number that can be used to track the vehicle through rebuilds, or even reassignments to another service. The registration number is an inventory tracking number by the service to follow its property. For instance a serial number would have been assigned to an M60A1 rolling out of a factory, but the registration number would have been assigned by either the USMC or US Army as the vehicle was accepted into inventory. I don't know if vehicles that are sold directly to a foreign government ever get a registration number (probably depends on the details of the sale).

Tichenor

P-O

You can compare the serial number with the chassisnumber of your car, the registration number with the licence plate of your car.

michel

Kurt_Laughlin · ***Power User*** Offline Joined: Jan 24, 2006 Posts: 577

Michel has a good analogy. I can imagine that the (US) wanted a unified numbering system by type (for example, 30- registrations are tanks) because each tank model had a serial starting with 1, so you might have five tanks of different types in service at once, all with serial number 100. With things like trucks there may be all sorts of numbers from different manufacturers that each have their own system, perhaps because the Government did not assign serials to some vehicle types.

KL

L.Delsing · ***Power User*** Offline Joined: Feb 10, 2006 Posts: 960

I agree with Michel.

In the aircraft spotting world ''serial'' is used for the painted registration on the aircraft and constructionnumber is used for the number which the factory assigned to the airframe.

Regards,
Lesley

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