Porsche Enthusiasts Club Forum

Hi there. I've a 1982 911 and plan to visit France for a couple of months ....just spent an hour on the internet trying to work out the rules for low emission zones. As far as I can ascertain - and there is different information on different sites, there appears to be no exemption for classic cars (although there ae various reports of the opposite.) However, I did see one report that the FEVE (see below) did not know of any fines being issued to classic car owners. My car doesn't meet the requirements for the CritAir stickers and falls under the definition of 'Vehicule de Collection'. Apparently a 'certificat d’immatriculation de collection' is issued by the FEVE, a french classic car organisation. This appears to be not available to cars registered overseas.

There are Permanent low-emission zones (ZCR) and temporary emergency low-emissions zones (known as ZPA) where rules apply. The only place I can find a list of the latter is the RAC website....which may or may not be currently accurate. One of these is the Vendee where i plan to spend a few weeks...

One of the permanent zones is Rouen, which Ill be passing through, and so will anyone else (probably) if you're going to classic (or current) Le Mans.

Current plan is to just say bugger the rules and see what happens....

Just wondered if anyone had spent a bit of time looking into this and any additional relevant info.....

I’ve looked into this a bit myself ahead of a similar trip with an older 944. You're right—it’s a bit of a mess with conflicting info depending on the source. From what I gathered, while there’s no official exemption for foreign-registered classics, enforcement seems extremely rare, especially outside of major cities. Rouen could be trickier, but I haven’t seen reports of classic car fines actually being issued.

Anecdotally, a few people who went through ZCR zones in classics didn’t face any issues as long as they weren’t driving during restricted hours or when alerts were active. If you’ve got insurance and papers showing it's a historic vehicle, that seems to help if questioned.

Curious to hear how your trip goes—keep us posted!