No, this is a 72 Mini - I believe a INNOCENTI MINI COOPER 1300. I do not think he is trying to pass this off as a 67...this Mini is in the USA and LHD.
I can see this is an Innocenti from the grill design. They had a few interesting odd differences.
No, I wasn't meaning to imply the owner was out to mislead, but to me, it portrays a lack of understanding of the UK registration system.
The same happened here, with this Roadster owner:
http://www5f.biglobe.ne.jp/~bugeye/my road.htm
Now frankly, thats a bit over the top. The registration, after much hunting, belongs to a 1995 Lotus Elan ; the mind boggles how he got this plate. The car appears to have been scrapped; plates are usually only made on production of owner registration details, so he got ths out of a scrapyard, while on A busman's holiday. Or nicked the plate from the long stay parking at Heathrow.....
Incidently, the records I have indcate that SPP 947E iwas issued to a Mini; identified as a Morris Mini 850, in red, 4 previous owners, with the last change in 2001, and has been unlicenced since then; either exported or scrapped. The car was first registered in February 1967. Although it is possible for registrations to be transferred from older cars to newer cars, this would show up on the database. Also, Innocentis were never officially sold in the UK; a few (all were LHD) came in (strangely mostly 1980 models), and would be issued correct plates for their declared year of manufacture, or more often than not, issued a Q-registration, as their actual age would be unknown.
An appropriate age-related for this Mini, for shows etc, would be a J or K suffix, of the form abc 123K
These records are very much public; you can check the status of any registration at:
http://www.vehiclelicence.gov.uk/EvlPortalApp/
You need to know the make of the car as well for this check. The RAC have a similar database, only requiring the registration number, but its less comprehensive. Its useful if you are thinking of importing a rhd Mini (and the size of the things means it doesn't make a big deal of a difference if the car is rhd or lhd), and need to ceck the rovenance of a car quickly; it will tell you if the car is likely to have been cloned
I wouldn't be surprised in some UK exporters of old Minis to the US will pull a fast one by disguising a newer model (which are generally cheaper than older ones) as an older model; I'm not sure what measures the authorities take to work out the age of a car. To the untrained eye, all Classic Minis look pretty much the same.
And on a Japanese theme; in its last years, the biggest market for the classic Mini was japan; they went nuts for the car, long after people in England moved onto objectively better and safer super-minis.
http://www.turtle-trading.co.jp/ws_list.php?rg_f=1&sel_type=1
http://www.d2.dion.ne.jp/~tani-32/index.html