Club Permit in Horsham, Victoria
Three hundred kilometres of Western Highway sit between Horsham and Melbourne, and that number decides almost everything about keeping an old vehicle here — where it gets inspected, who signs for it, and how long a club run takes.
Updated 5 September 2026. Written and checked by Sam and Riley, the named officials who run Club Plate Co.
Club permits in Horsham
That highway is the Victorian half of the Melbourne–Adelaide National Highway and the second-busiest national highway in the country for freight, moving more than five million tonnes a year. It is worth a thought before you plan a permit day that involves a 1970s sedan and a queue of B-doubles.
The counter on O’Callaghans Parade does all services and all vehicle type inspections, so a Wimmera application never has to leave the district. What does travel is the driver: the Wimmera is dryland cropping country where the vehicles live in farm sheds and the nearest club meeting can be an hour each way.
Roadworthy testers near Horsham
A vehicle built on or after 1 January 1949 needs a current certificate of roadworthiness from a licensed vehicle tester before a club official can sign anything. Transport Victoria publishes the licensed vehicle tester search, which is the only list that tells you who actually holds a licence.
Widen the licensed vehicle tester search past Horsham before you decide there is no booking — Murtoa is about 30 kilometres out, and Stawell, Nhill, Warracknabeal and Dimboola are all inside a normal Wimmera driving day. Whichever you pick, ask for the full defect list on the first visit: out here a second trip in is measured in tens of kilometres, not minutes.
Machinery sheds on cropping country keep a body dry and straight and do nothing at all for the parts that are meant to flex. The Wimmera pattern is sound floors with dead hoses, hard tyres and brittle wiring insulation, so price those in before the inspection rather than after it.
The trip in will be highway kilometres rather than suburban ones, on the main freight route between Melbourne and Adelaide. That puts brakes, tyres, wipers and lights at the front of the list rather than the end.
Where to get a roadworthy done near Horsham
A short directory of 3 licensed vehicle testers in and around Horsham, each listed publicly on Victoria’s official register. Club Plate Co has no arrangement with any of them and doesn’t endorse or recommend them, so confirm price, availability and booking directly with the workshop before you go.
The full register on the official Transport Victoria map lists every licensed tester near you.
All three of these trade in Horsham itself, which for most of the district means the roadworthy and the counter are the same trip into town. The scale of that catchment is easy to underrate: Murtoa is about 30 kilometres away, and Kiata, still on the Western Highway, is 359 kilometres from Melbourne against Horsham’s 300.
| Workshop | Suburb | Phone | What we could confirm |
|---|---|---|---|
| Horsham Autoworks | Horsham | 03 5382 7422 | Register listing, and its own site advertises roadworthy work |
| Rudolph Motors | Horsham | 03 5382 4828 | Register listing, and its own site advertises roadworthy work |
| John Burgess Mechanical Repairs | Horsham | 03 5381 1599 | Register listing only |
A workshop is linked here only where its own website advertises roadworthy work. The rest are on the register — genuinely licensed — but we could not corroborate the service anywhere else, so we have not linked them. Ring first.
The certificate is valid for 30 days. Book the test with your VicRoads visit already in mind, not months ahead. More detail on roadworthy and inspection.
Nearest VicRoads office to Horsham
This is the one trip a club permit application cannot avoid. Bring the signed application and declaration, proof of identity, the roadworthy certificate if the vehicle was built after 1948, compliance-plate evidence and payment. The vehicle itself stays where it is.
The application asks for a garage address, and prints the rule beside the field: “VicRoads will only register vehicles garaged in Victoria” — Club permit application, form DTP1142 (01/25). Tell VicRoads within 14 days if that address changes.
Horsham Customer Service Centre
14 O'Callaghans Pde, Horsham VIC 3400
8.30am – 4.30pm, Monday to Friday
All services, all vehicle type inspections, accredited bus plates
Details from the VicRoads office page, checked live 5 September 2026. Confirm before you travel — VicRoads changes office hours.
VicRoads takes general enquiries on 13 11 71, and lists every office on its club permit pages. Ring ahead if you want to know whether that office has plates in stock — if not, they are posted to you.
Roads worth the trip from Horsham
Most of the Wimmera is flat plain, and only Gariwerd and Arapiles rise out of it — so a permit day here is chosen by which horizon you point at. The Western Highway runs Melbourne to Adelaide straight through the middle of town, the Wimmera Highway crosses it towards Murtoa and Bendigo, and the silo trail starts on Horsham’s own grain silo.
- Western Highway — The Melbourne–Adelaide National Highway through Horsham, routes A8 and M8: about 258 kilometres of single carriageway plus 161 kilometres of Western Freeway, and the second-busiest national highway in Australia for freight at over five million tonnes a year.
- Gariwerd / Grampians National Park — A 167,219-hectare park sitting between Stawell and Horsham on the Western Highway and Dunkeld on the Glenelg Highway, added to the National Heritage List on 15 December 2006; about 90 per cent of Victoria’s rock art is in the Gariwerd area.
- Mount Arapiles (Djurid) — A rock formation rising about 140 metres above the Wimmera plains, 10 kilometres west of Natimuk, and one of Australia’s premier climbing sites; the Wotjobaluk name for it is Djurid.
- Little Desert National Park — 132,647 hectares of deep sandy country near Dimboola, running from the Wimmera River west to the South Australian border near Naracoorte. Most roads inside the park are four-wheel-drive only, so an old car stays on the sealed approaches.
- Murtoa, on the Wimmera Highway — A town around Lake Marma about 30 kilometres from Horsham, whose grain receival centre holds up to 400,000 tonnes and is the largest inland receival centre in Australia.
- Silo Art Trail — A 700-kilometre chain of painted grain silos across the Wimmera Mallee, billed as Australia’s largest outdoor gallery; Horsham has its own silo on the trail, Yangga Dyata by Sam Bates, with the black cockatoo painted on the adjacent flour mill.
Names link to each note’s source. Log the date before you leave the garage address: rules and logbook.
Horsham car clubs, and where we differ
The Wimmera Mallee Historical Vehicle Society is the district’s general historic vehicle club and runs the April swap meet, but its website publishes nothing about the club permit scheme — no permit page, no eligibility notes, and an events list that still shows a 2020 calendar. Whether it can sign for you is a phone call, not a web page.
That same calendar is a fair picture of what club membership costs out here in kilometres: general meetings rotating between Dooen Hall, the Warracknabeal Scout Hall and Kiata, with members car-pooling from the Horsham and Warracknabeal post offices at 7pm. Check any club against VicRoads’ approved-club list before you pay a membership, because approval is the only thing that makes a signature worth anything.
Distance should not be the reason a Wimmera vehicle sits unregistered. Club Plate Co endorses online, with no meeting to drive to and no inspection day, and you can hold a local membership as well if you want the club for the company.
Both routes are legitimate: VicRoads treats every approved club the same, and the permit is identical whichever one signs it. Its list of approved clubs and associations is the place to check that a club can actually endorse an application before you pay a membership. Comparing car clubs sets out what to look at.
Car shows and meets near Horsham
Four dates carry the Wimmera and its edge of the ranges: a swap meet at the Horsham Showgrounds in autumn, a Father’s Day display in a Horsham car park, a main-street show and shine at Minyip, and one under Gariwerd at Halls Gap.
- Horsham Automotive Swap Meet — April. Run by the Wimmera Mallee Historical Vehicle Society at the Horsham Showgrounds on McPherson Street — parts, accessories, tools and memorabilia; the 2026 meet ran 7am to 2pm on Saturday 11 April.
- Father’s Day Car & Bike Show, Horsham — Father’s Day, September. Cars and bikes in the west car park at Horsham Plaza, raising money for Wimmera Against Cancer in Kids; the AOMC listed the 2026 show for Sunday 6 September, 9am to midday.
- Minyip Show and Shine — February. A free-entry car and bike day along Main Street, Minyip, in the middle of the wheat belt, from vintage Holdens and Fords to custom builds; Visit Grampians lists the next one for 28 February 2027.
- Show & Shine, Halls Gap — October. All models of cars and motorbikes at the Halls Gap Recreation Reserve with the Grampians behind them, run by the Holdens of Age Car Club, trophies and raffle from 1pm; the AOMC lists it for Sunday 25 October 2026, 9.30am to 2pm.
Dates move from year to year, so check the linked organiser page before you log the day.
Club permit fees
VicRoads charges $135.70 for a 45-day car permit and $220.60 for a 90-day one, each including the TAC charge, the permit fee, the logbook and a pair of standard plates. A motorcycle is $113.60 and $198.50. Club Plate Co membership is $99 a year on top, and a licensed tester sets the roadworthy price.
| Item (car) | 45-day permit | 90-day permit |
|---|---|---|
| TAC charge | $60.50 | $117.70 |
| Permit fee | $27.60 | $55.30 |
| Logbook | $3.40 | $3.40 |
| Number plates (pair, standard) | $44.20 | $44.20 |
| Total paid to VicRoads | $135.70 | $220.60 |
Fees checked 5 September 2026 against the VicRoads permit fees page. VicRoads sets and revises these figures, normally each July — confirm the current amount before you pay.
The pricing page breaks down every line, including motorcycles, plate replacement and what a first year actually costs.
Club permit questions from Horsham
Do I have to travel out of the Wimmera for any part of a club permit?
No. The Horsham Customer Service Centre at 14 O’Callaghans Pde provides all services and all vehicle type inspections, so the application, the payment, the plates and the logbook are all handled in town. That matters more here than in the city, because Horsham is roughly 300 kilometres north-west of Melbourne.
Which Horsham car club can sign a club permit application?
The Wimmera Mallee Historical Vehicle Society runs the town’s automotive swap meet, but it does not publish anything about club permits on its website, so you would have to ring and ask. Any VicRoads-approved club can endorse an application regardless of where it is based, and Club Plate Co is one of them.
Can I get the roadworthy and the plates on the same trip into Horsham?
Usually, if you book the tester first. VicRoads does not issue roadworthy certificates — only a licensed vehicle tester does — so the order is tester, then counter. Given how far some of this district is from town, it is worth confirming the tester’s appointment before you set out rather than driving in on spec.
I farm near the South Australian border. Does the vehicle have to be garaged in Victoria?
Yes. The VicRoads club permit application form states beside its garage address field that VicRoads will only register vehicles garaged in Victoria. The garage address you record is also the point the 100-metre rule is measured from, so put down where the vehicle actually lives — the shed, not the home block if they are different.
Does the permit cover moving a vehicle around the farm?
Moving it within the property is not a permit day, but the moment you go more than 100 metres from the recorded garage address you need the logbook entry made first. Commercial use is outside the scheme entirely, so carting grain or fencing wire in a permitted truck is not covered, even on your own land.
Start whenever it suits. Pay only when everything’s in.
Your classic deserves to be driven. Begin your application now and it waits for your roadworthy — we don’t charge you until it’s all in hand. Not sure you’re eligible? It’s just the build date: 25 years or older and you’re in.