When you say "number plate" i believe that you're talking about a license/registration plate.... the answer to that being- no... at least not in most states.... most of the time once a vehicle changes registration plates or "tags", the state labels the old plate(s) as "dead", this means that if the police would check for info on that plate, they would be informed that the registration is no longer "good" for that plate and that's that.... your best bet to track an old car is to have the VIN number from the car and go somewhere like "vehix.com" and pay to get the current and past info. avail. for the vehicle.