I used exotic for lack of a better word, what I mean is what’s the most far away place that you’ve seen a vehicle registered from? I always find it interesting when I see a car registered in some far away place. It’s fascinating thinking about how they came all this way and why. Here in Sweden I’ve seen all kinds of far away licenses. Intra-EU plates are of course common, some more than others. Tons of polish, finish, German, baltic cars here. But I have seen several cars with US plates, once I saw a truck with Iranian plates, this summer I saw a camper van with plates from China! It had some kind of QR code plastered on the side of it and some text, so I’m guessing they were Chinese bloggers or something similar. I’ve also seen Dubai and earlier this year I also saw a car in my Stockholm suburb with Libyan plates. I also saw a Russian registered car this summer (which isn’t that out of the ordinary, especially wasn’t pre war) but what made it so wild is that Russian license plates have a region code. I googled the code on this car, which was a pretty clapped out 15 ish year old station wagon, parked on the street in my neighborhood, and it turns out that the cars registration was from Khabarovsk region of Russia! Which is insane to think. It’s in the far east of Russia. It’s almost 10,000 kilometers away! What kind of interesting vehicles have you spotted?

26 comments

  1. I saw a jeep with an Isle of Man plate once, in a suburb to Stockholm. Thought it was pretty exotic.

  2. In parts of London it is fairly common to see number plates from wealthy Arab gulf states, attached to very expensive super cars. Lots of rich young Arabs like to spend time here and import their obnoxious cars with them.

    Once saw a very nondescript car with Ontario plates in the small town I grew up in. Not sure how much it would have cost to get that over from Canada, or why you’d bother.

  3. Saw a RHD Audi with British plates in Vancouver, Canada. In Europe the most exotic one I’ve seen is probably a Swedish car in Italy. There are also quite a few Ukrainian cars in Spain at the moment for obvious reasons.

    Is [this](http://xhslink.com/ytivrw) the Chinese van you saw? They were in Europe this summer.

  5. I’m always pleased to se Åland license plate, tho they are not super rare here in the main land. Same curiosity applies to others similarly governmented areas and their plates which I’ve almost never seen.

    Perhaps the most surprising plate seen has been French Guyana if I remember correctly.

  6. Saw a camper van from Ireland in a small village in Burgenland, Austria. No idea why they would want to go there.

  8. I once saw a car with New York plates parked along the coast in Alimos, a southern suburb of Athens, Greece.

  9. Earlier this year I saw a car from Qatar. It was a relatively normal but a somewhat special car, so I assume somebody had just moved here from there and decided to bring their car with them. And a couple of years ago I saw a car with Andorra plates in Central-Finland. I’ve never another one.

  11. Saw a Land Rover Defender with Canadian BC license plates in Kaunas, on Thursday. Think that tops the “exotic” chart

  12. During the summer you can see all of the european ones, more or less. I think I only never saw Ireland and some microstates.. From non-european I saw a few US and Canada, and arguably non european Turkey and the most exotic Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan.

  14. In the Netherlands, often saw plates from places such as Morocco (common due to the large diaspora of Moroccans in NL), Kuwait and even the UAE (Specifically Dubai or Sharjah).

    In Malta, probably the District of Columbia (The US, I suspect was an embassy employee’s car imported), and also saw some plates from the Caucasus, such as Georgia, and even more exotic, Kyrgysztan.

    Considering that getting to Malta by car is no easy feat (requires 2 separate ferries from the mainland), even seeing foreign plates that aren’t Italian is often rare.

  15. I saw a car with Icelandic plates in Verona this year, which is probably the most unsusual I’ve seen

  17. Saw an east german license plate in norway in the early 90s. Quite special given that east-european cars were not that normal at the time (maybe a reason for remembering it). Were some Ladas around (Lada had a decent sale in Norway in the 70s/80s), though hardly any trabis, polski fiat, yugos or other types of cars from eastern europe. Also quite recognizable with the sticker DDR, given that most nationality stickers were 1 or 2 letters.. (N = Norway, NL = Netherlands etc). According to wikipedia, those east german-plate were legal all the way to 1993. So think it’s the most unique I’ve seen given that one most likely only had those 3 years to see those license plates outside eastern-europe/germany. A reminder that east-germany actually were not that far-away.. just accross the waters from sweden.

  18. This summer, here in Portugal, I saw a car with a French license plate. Well, I saw about a million, but this specific one was from département 972, which is Martinique.

  19. I saw a plate from Paraguay on an old Volkswagen camper a couple of years ago in a small village in Eastern Germany.

  20. Not my country, but I once saw a Swiss license plate trying to cross the border between Canada and America. The border guards looked quite puzzled haha

  21. i was on vacation in california with my family a couple years ago. in the parking space of one of the national parks i saw a car from the same austrian city i’m from lol

  22. I’ve seen Icelandic plates on the south coast of Ireland. It’s a long route, involving multiple ferry crossings. I was speaking to the owner and they driven through Norway and to Ireland via Roscoff in NW France!

    There’s no direct route by ferry to Ireland from Iceland. You could do it by boat yourself in about 36 hours.

  23. I have seen an Irish license plate almost daily. It was in a town with 10k population, so quite unusual for a town that size.

  24. I currently live in the very northernmost parts of Sweden.

    Here I’ve mostly seen the EU/ESS ones, like Norwegian, Finnish, Dutch, German, Belgian, French, Danish, Austrian, Swiss, Czech, Slovakian, Estonian, Lithuanian, Latvian, Polish, Luxembourgish, Italian, Spanish, Portugese, Romanian, Bulgarian, etc, etc… but surprisingly often also Ukrainian and Russian.
    Brittish and Irish ones are rare, but it has happened.
    I think I’ve also seen at least one Kazakh at some point.

    US plates happens now and then, but in most cases I think they’ve been recently imported (classic) cars that just haven’t yet been registered in Sweden.

    Although the most *exotic* ones I’ve seen this year include an *Icelandic* one and a *Chinese* one.
    I don’t think I’ve ever seen any if those two before.

    Also saw an Åland this summer, which I *have* seen in Sweden before, but never before this far north.

  26. I’ve seen Hawaii in Madrid.

    I actually stopped to ask and it was a Marine that had been transferred to the embassy so far less exciting story.

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