My trip to the RDW

After I got the car I decided to wait to get it registered till it was tax-exempt. This also gave me the opportunity to get some things fixed and have it approved as a normal person vehicle instead of a commercial vehicle.
Because I had bought an ex-military vehicle it wasn't supplied with normal license plates, therefore I had to go to a test at the RDW.
They take a look at the technical state of your car and they go through the paperwork to check the origin of the vehicle and if all looks well they will give you your registration with which you can get your license plates.
A few days before the appointment I wanted to check the cars serial number, on the Land Rover 109 this is situated on the front of the righthand chassis rail above the springretainer. I took of the big steel tow plate that covered this part and there was nothing there…. Only a lot of black army paint. I tried to scrape of some of the paint but couldn't find a number. Hmmm, I felt rather weird, had I bought a car without a serial number? I phoned the guy I bought it from and confronted him with it. He laughed and said that I take a knife and try to scrape of the paint and look for a big black sticker. And yes, the serial number was on a nice blank piece of steel covered by a big sticker that was covered by a lot of paint…pffff.

When you make an appointment at the RDW you get a one day licence plate, you can use this to drive to the RDW station. It was a nice day and it was a great feeling to make the trip from de Wijk to Groningen. The mechanics at the RDW were really nice and complemented me about the technical state of the car. Then came the other problem, the car needed a type of approval ("typegoedkeuring"). But they couldn't agree on what it should be. I had a copy of the registration card of the car of another ambulance owner (Victor Rutten - www.series3.nl who has a 109 GWT (GeWondenTransport), but they decided to make a new one, I was now the offical owner of a Land Rover 109 ambulance. So after an hour and a half I was finished and had my papers. It would take another 7 days before all the paperwork was finished and I got my license plates. Now I could really start driving around...