Hi All, There has been much debate over what you can & can't to California license plates, i.e. restore original plates, paint new ones to look like old ones, etc. I was at the Belomont Shores car show yesterday and saw many "illegal" plates: -- At least a couple of DOZEN cars with newer CA plates painted black. -- One newer CA plate painted like the chrome yellow/black 1956-1962 plates. -- At least a dozen YOM plates with no year or month registration stickers displayed. -- An orange 1932 Ford roadster with the YOM plate background painted ORANGE and black lettering. All in all, it doesn't look like "liberties" taken with license plates are too high on the police federal offense list.
Alot of those are probably changed just when they are at the show,do you wanna be the one the law makes an example out of?i would not mess with the plate thing.there are alot of officers out there who know what they are looking at when they run up behind you!
I know a guy that had a foriegn oval shaped plate on his VW, I assume it was German?? . this was on the front, with a legal plate with current tags on the back. some dick cop pulls him over all pissed off and gave him all sorts of shit and confiscated his collector plate. this was a big oval plate... pretty much the same as no plate at all since no one with a brain would call that number in should the car be involved in an accident or crime. the cop just felt like messing with someone. then again this was a while ago and he was around 25 in a HOT ROD VW. cop would most likely give an old fart more respect. people mess around with plates all the time. just a matter of the cops attitude for that day how getting pulled over will work out.
Most all of them had current registration stickers (except the YOM ones I had mentioned), which means they drove in with them on.
So what. What difference does it make to you. Maybe you should have asked someone when you were at the show looking for YOM registrations.
I just sold this 911 with these plates and I was never questioned. As it turns out, 1976 was the first year for personalized plates in California, but I guarantee virtually NO policeman knew this car was a '76 except for the license plate saying it. Bought the repro license from licenseplates.tv, shipped them to an out of state friend to forward to me. Ordered new, modern plates with the same lettering. When they came in I handed in the old ones, got the new ones and stickers and proceeded to the parking lot to put on the repro '76 plate. Uh oh! I only got ONE repro plate in the envelope! Drove over to a print shop and had a color copy of the repro plate made on heavy cardboard stock. THEN, I put the new stickers on the "real" repro '76 plate and installed it. No one ever said a thing about it in five years. I put one of those cheesy clear plastic covers on the front plate so it would be protected from debris. It slightly discolored over the years, just made it look more real! Now I have a '46 Chevy truck with new plates - ugh. I'm gonna do the same except I'm not going to do "personalized" plates per se. I remember the plate number of my Dad's '55 Chevy Belair two door hardtop so I'm gonna have repro '46 era plates made with that number and install those. I'm not sure, but I THINK in '46 the plates were actually '45 with a little metal corner on them for the '46 tag. I think they were yellow with black lettering and maybe they were slightly larger with rounded corners than modern plates? Anyway, that's my plan...CALL THE POLICE. Reminds me of the Big Lebowski, "...yeah, we'll get right on it..." (Uproarious police laughter!)
your list of wrong's was correct except for the tags I've done a couple dozen of my cars with "YOM", early on and I believe the correct way is a small aluminum tag plate as on a motorcycle with split tags,the last few they gave me the full size tags for year and month put one on the plate other on tag holder, I'd post a picture but don't know how. Roger
Those old plates look cool, but I've gotten appreciative of the modern plates reflective qualities bein' I have a small black car (32 roadster) with small (39 Ford)taillights. The reflective plate really helps light it up at night. Note the reflective plate hanging on the pegboard near the top right of the windshield frame. Kinda nice too, to just fire up and drive away from the rod run without having to worry about anything....
I wasn't "looking for YOM registrations". I was looking at their plates. These are just things I noticed yesterday. I'm actually applauding these people, who are modifying theirs plates. I just happen to dig license plates. In fact, I just had my new personnalized plate painted black/chrome yellow and I've installed it on my car. And there are a lot of people on here warning against such a deed.
I have some 1932 YOM plates that I put on legally going through the DMV. They're just old plates that are still legible with decent looking paint. They are original and sort of a dark yellow or yellowish orange color with black letters. I kind of like that they're actually old looking. If I rub the surface with WD-40, it gives the old paint some gloss again and the dull rusty areas get darker and almost disappear. I made a backing plate thing with little "ears" out of polished stainless steel that sticks up over the corners to put the DMV registration stickers on. Those ears also gave me a place to mount some small license illumination lamps. I think if you ask for them, the DMV will give you little stamped aluminum ears to put the stickers on if you don't want to make something yourself.
The Jalopy Journal
