Getting your car home from the saleroom

A car built or first registered more than 40 years ago needs no MOT, provided it has not been substantially changed in the last 30 years; a different chassis, bodyshell, axles, suspension type or engine family counts as substantial. The exemption is not automatic: you declare it when you tax the car, online or on form V112 at a Post Office, and the DVLA then records it, so it does not need renewing each year. It is still your job to keep the car roadworthy, and the police can fine you up to £2,500 and add three points for using a dangerous vehicle, exempt or not. Many owners put an exempt car through a voluntary MOT after buying, which is cheap reassurance and useful if an insurer ever asks.

If the car is under 40 years old and has no valid MOT, you cannot drive it home. The only lawful road use without an MOT is a direct journey to a pre-booked MOT test or to a place of repair, insured, and a 60-mile trip home from Pickering is not that. Fines run to £1,000. Book a test near the saleroom, or put it on a transporter.

Road tax is never transferred with a vehicle. The seller gets a refund of the full months remaining and the new keeper must tax the car before driving it, even where the rate is nil. Cars built before 1 January 1986 qualify for the historic tax class from April 2026, at £0, but only once you have applied for it. You can tax online straight away using the green new keeper slip (V5C/2) from the log book; if the car is not already in the historic class you may need to tax at the standard rate first and change the class at a Post Office when your new V5C arrives, with form V112 for the MOT declaration. Any months paid at the standard rate are refunded when the class changes.

Make sure the car comes with a V5C log book and that the seller, through Mathewsons, has the new keeper details. Your own V5C arrives within five to seven working days if the seller notifies the DVLA online, or within four weeks by post. A car with no V5C can be registered with form V62 and a £25 fee, but expect delays and questions from the DVLA; Mathewsons' own terms require an up-to-date V5 before they pay a seller, which is some comfort.

You must be insured before you drive on the road, and the car must be insured or declared off road (SORN) from the day it is yours, because the DVLA's continuous insurance rules apply to the registered keeper. Trade plates are only for motor traders, so a private buyer cannot use them. The practical route is to arrange a classic policy by telephone before collection day; specialist insurers will usually set one up on the day with the chassis number. Short-term "drive away" cover is sold for ordinary cars but is patchy for anything old, so do not count on it. Ask for an agreed-value policy, which fixes what the insurer pays if the car is written off, rather than a market value they decide later.

If the car is over 40, taxed on the green slip, insured, and you have looked at the tyres, brakes and lights at the viewing, driving home is lawful and most buyers do. If it has stood for years, or has no MOT and is under 40, or you simply do not know what you have bought, put it on a trailer. A single-car transporter is priced by the mile: AnyVan quotes about £1 a mile for long runs and up to £3 a mile for short ones, and Shiply about 95p a mile over 50 miles. On those rates our own estimate for an open transporter from Pickering is £100 to £250 to the Leeds and York area and £250 to £500 to London, more for an enclosed trailer or a car that will not roll; get two quotes. Mathewsons offer collection and delivery at a reduced rate, which is worth asking about. The saleroom wants the car gone within ten days.

A car in the historic tax class is exempt from London's ULEZ (as is anything built before 1973, whatever its tax class) and from the English clean air zones at Bath, Birmingham, Bradford, Bristol, Portsmouth, Sheffield and Tyneside. It is the tax class that counts, not the age, so a 40-year-old car still in the standard class pays until you change it.