RDW - Dutch road registration

Time for a retrospective update to keep the storyline complete. Two weeks ago I had the appointment with the Dutch Road registration (www.rdw.nl) to get the car on Dutch plates.

One of the guys was so kind to support me with a trailer and assisted the journey towards the RDW. So onwards we went:

 And unloaded at the RDW:

I wasn't entirely sure what to expect but apparently they have some kind of formal roadmap they follow, meaning weighting, measuring, ID-checks, paper checks etc.

The first thing was to do a weight check. So we pushed it on the weigh bridge. Then the official noticed the interior was missing. So his first remark was that we had to come back again with the interior to perform an accurate weighting. I was slightly annoyed by this. If I had would have known beforehand … At the spot I was hoping he simply could have reused the weight of a normal Dodge Aspen it would be not an issue. But no, it could not be done. In fact if the weight was mentioned on the UK registration papers he would have reused that information. But since the British had done a sloppy job and left that field empty it was not a possibility.

Next he started measuring the wheel base and some other bits. No issue there.

Since I had mentioned the car was based on a Dodge Aspen he wanted more confirmation about the car. In the end we ended searching the car on Google to identify it was Monteverdi Sierra. I was asked about the badges to further confirm it was a Sierra. These were already secured and removed when we bought the car so they could not fall off. And of course I had these stored at home. Sigh.

Only the Monteverdi badge was still firmly on the bonnet of the car. Also further identity checking of the chassis ID and engine ID was acted difficult upon. I informed the guy that Monteverdi no longer exists and produced very low volumes and very little information was available. So far the only information I got from the Club was it's color and that it was delivered in Arabia. But he turned it around, I had to do more research and come up with proof that it was matching or at least demonstrate that I had done my utmost best to conform it's identity. If I was unable to obtain more information they would accept though what I was able to supply. The British papers had added W8 in front of the chassis ID, not sure why or where this is coming from? The Chassis ID label is only having 9153.

Since the car did had the interior removed he could not even qualify it as a 4 seater. It's another true story.

Furthermore the state of the car was not deemed sufficient to get registration plates. Although I had checked beforehand and confirmed that a technical check was not part of the registration they still had a formality check/procedure that required specific criteria needs to be met. Again, if I would have known that beforehand. He claimed that the car was missing sufficient structure and being incomplete to become registered as a car. Meaning the chassis (carrying parts), floorpanels and interior had to be firmed up. I was told this specific requirement was put in place to avoid rotten bodies parked outside become registered again.

Accordingly I was informed that I had made the right first steps for this project. Still this meant a lot of extra hassle to get it officially registered.

In fact if we did not had started all this dismanteling in advance chances were very likely that it would have got officially registered. The guy who assisted me had a Fiat 130 Berlina in a very similar state, if not worse, but he left it intact and got it registered on Dutch license plates succesfully.

So with this paper I was sent home … more work to do ...