Ok I always thought google was my friend, but even she couldn’t tell me what a 54 or 55 plate Golf is. So, what is it.
It's the age identifier of the vehicle that is built into the European license plate numbering system...
They are the 3rd and 4th digits of the plate number.
With regards to the 3rd digit, A 1 signifies it was first registered sometime between March 1st and August 31st sometime in the 2000's. A 5 signifies it was first registered between Sept 1 and Feb 29 (of the following year) sometime in the 2000's.
The 3rd digits changed to 2's and 6's in the 2010's. And will be 3's and 7's on the 2020's. And so on and so on.
The 4th digit is the year.
So a "53 plate" was first registered some time between Sept 1st, 2003 and Feb 29, 2004.
A "29 plate" will be registered between March 1st, 2019 and August 31st, 2019.
It's a really brilliant numbering scheme.