black plates

[John Loftus]

I was looking through some photos I took last year and this one reminded me of a discussion on California black plates. A rare plate for a rare car.

Cheers,
John

 

[Nunyas]

yeah... everytime I see cars running the era correct plates on their cars, I can't help but envy them. Somewhere along the line, one of the POs of my '76 upgraded the plates to the modern white plates... :\ for my plates to be era correct, I'd need a non-reflective blue plate with yellow letters. I might ping the DMV on it sometime in the future, but I don't think I can get one of those anymore... at least not without doing the limited milage "classic" plates. :\

 

[Grantura_MKI]

Why don't you sent out you plate and have it painted blue and yellow?

 

[Bruce Bowker]

[ QUOTE ]
I was looking through some photos I took last year and this one reminded me of a discussion on California black plates. A rare plate for a rare car.

Cheers,
John

[/ QUOTE ]

Plates or no plates, both those cars in the picture are great looking vehicles.

Bruce

 

[R6MGS]

Here in Ontario if you can find a set of matching plates that are correct to the year you can register them...I've got a nice set for the 61 MGA(plates are black with white) but haven't bothered to register them yet becasue my wife has a habit of scraping the front plate on curbs when she pulls into a parking spot(Ok I've done it a few times too).....I've still got the original plates on my camaro...same as current plates but these are non reflective.

 

[John Loftus]

[ QUOTE ]
Plates or no plates, both those cars in the picture are great looking vehicles.
Bruce

[/ QUOTE ]

Yup .. purdy purdy cars. The red one is a '59 Ferrari 250 Fantuzzi Spyder. It set the course record at Le Mans in 1960 I think. If you look closely, you can see the 'power bulge' on the hood is made from clear polycarbonate.

Cheers,
John

 

[AngliaGT]

I think this Ferrari had Blue plates w/Gold letters repainted Black/Gold.I don't know how legal that is.
Personalised plates weren't offered until after the
Blue/Gold plates came out (1980),except for Ham radio/etc.

- Doug

 

[Randi]

No I had blue and gold "Randi 1" in 1968. I still have one of them.

 

[Paul Johnson]

Here in Texas also one can buy plates of the correct year and get them approved for use. A nice touch, and there is a thriving market for plates at flea markets and antique malls.

 

[swift6]

[ QUOTE ]
Why don't you sent out you plate and have it painted blue and yellow?

[/ QUOTE ]

Laws could vary from state to state but often they read that the plates must displayed as issued. Meaning you can't personally customize the plates to your personal tastes. The level of enforcement on that can vary from officer to officer of course.

I had a "euro" style plate made for my front bumper that matched my "collector" issue plate on the rear, here in Colorado both front and rear plate are required (though not always enforced).
My sister, who is an police officer in town, told me that some officers would love to pull me over for it. So far the only comments from non-relation law enforcement have been... "interesting idea". Not a single ticket though.

Painting a newer Calilfornia plate to look like an earlier plate? I guess it would depend on your luck and officers knowing the difference.

/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cheers.gif

 

[Nunyas]

well, if it looked like a new blue & yellow plate, I reckon it'd be too obvious and I'd get dinged for it. All of the plates of that style that I've seen still in use on "daily drivers, have some amount of fading and to some degree oxidation. Have yet to see any of the blue plate cars on the road with "like new" plates on them... heh

 

[William]

I think here in Illinois it would be impossible to get age related plates for any car, because replacement of the plates was mandatory when they changed to the current ugly plates we're stuck with. If the state ever comes to its senses and goes back to the traditional white with blue lettering design, I've got my old plates in the garage! (when the state "upgraded" the plate design, you could opt to keep your current registration-I've had the same plate number since 1993, and have grown rather attached to it, even though its not a vanity plate. Mom has had the same number since 1980!).

It rather makes me wish that the laws here were similar to California's, where you didn't have to "upgrade" to a newer design unless you were registering a new car (that's by my understanding-IIRC most black and blue plates still being used are on older cars, right?).

-Wm.

 

[Nunyas]

that's my understanding of it. I see an occassional black plate running around every now and then. Mostly on old Mustangs.

 

[aeronca65t]

I have a friend Tim, who has orignal black Virginia plates on his Mini.
He bought the Mini new when he was 16 and has owned it for forty years!
This car lived part of it's life as a race car and 21 years ago, Tim ran it at our first EMRA 4-Hour Night Enduro at Summit Point and won overall! (those where "pre-Honda" days).
He decided to restore the car around 10 years ago and wanted old-style plates (the originals were lost). He went to the Virginia DMV and found that they had a supply of old black plates. He couldn't choose a number, but the old-style plates look very correct and "period" on his car. He continues to drive it to our Summit Point events...this car is a neat part of our club history.
Here's Tim's Mini:

 

[AngliaGT]

California won't allow you to keep original plates if the
vehicle is no longer in the computer.I had to turn in my original plates wwhen I bought my '78 Triumph Bonneville.
I have a brand new set of Black/Gold plates from my Dad's
old '32 Ford that were never installed.I can only use them
for car shows,but not run them on the street.
I also inherited a set of all 48 state metal licence
plates that the cereal company (General Mills) offered in
1954.Alot of them had real style to them.

- Doug

 

[Steve_S]

The "1959" plate above is not an original plate. It is probably stuck on there at car shows. You can buy them many places including ebay.

California will allow Year Of Manufacture plates to be assigned to a vehicle up to 1962, which means before black plates. Black/yellow and blue/yellow plates are not allowed to be assigned.

Painting a modern plate to look like an old one is illegal but that's not the biggest problem. All older plates from blue plates back had raised lettering for the state name while the new ones are painted on flat metal. You could never get it to look right. You can, however, get some really authentic-looking plastic replicas from places that supply plates for movie cars. I know of a good place in North Hollywood if anyone needs it. Using them on a road-going car is illegal so I'm not suggesting actually doing this. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

The other problem with painting a modern plate as an old one (or ordering vanity and replacing with a movie replica plate) is that the letter and number combinations would not match and this would be a dead giveaway to a policeman. Old plates used three letters followed by three numbers. This type of combination is not allowed on modern vanity plates for the very reason that people like us might try such a thing. I looked into it a couple years back with the intention of painting the plate black and yellow! In the end I gave up and got modern vanity plates. It looks better than the random 7-character plate the DMV assigned when I brought my car into CA.

Luckily for me my '65 still has the original black plates, which I will never get rid of! My '58 now has orange/black plates appropriate for the car, replacing the ugly modern white ones. I'm on the hunt for a set of correct '49 plates for another car. But the '67 will never be able to use black plates. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif

 

[John Loftus]

[ QUOTE ]
The "1959" plate above is not an original plate.

[/ QUOTE ]

Those cheaters!! Now I'm starting to wonder if the car is real! Might be one of those fiberglass replicars! (I hear you can get those in Hollywood too)
/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/devilgrin.gif

Thanks for the info .. all sounds plausable. I had given some thought to turning my 'extra' white CA vanity plate into a black plate but AUSTINH is 7 letters .. a dead giveaway plus the raised California would not be the same. Oh wait .. maybe with a bit of bondo ...

Cheers,
John

 

[Steve_S]

Oh, one more thing. In 1959 plates were orange with black lettering, not black with yellow! HERE is a link to a 1958 "black plate".

 

[William]

[ QUOTE ]
California won't allow you to keep original plates if the
vehicle is no longer in the computer.I had to turn in my original plates wwhen I bought my '78 Triumph Bonneville.
I have a brand new set of Black/Gold plates from my Dad's
old '32 Ford that were never installed.I can only use them
for car shows,but not run them on the street.
I also inherited a set of all 48 state metal licence
plates that the cereal company (General Mills) offered in
1954.Alot of them had real style to them.

- Doug

[/ QUOTE ]

So, if I'm understanding this correctly, you could keep black plates if the car had been continuously registered, right? This is a genuine question because you read of "Original California Black Plate" cars for sale, which to me would indicate a car that's at the very least been registered continuously from whenever the black plate was originally issued. Same for the later blue plates (a special! I'll get it.... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/hammer.gif ), if not necessarily in constant daily driver use.

Its horribly geeky, this fascination with license plates. But current ones are such an eyesore (I really miss the days of plain two color plates....) that I wish a better alternative was available, particularly for old cars. The current Illinois plates we have on the B just look out of place, and the MGB doesn't look that old fashioned. The previous generation white and blue ones were nicer!

I see old plates for sale at the flea market all the time, and I'm always tempted to buy a couple for some reason, but I don't need to start a new collection of anything! Although if I found a set of IL plates for the year I was born I'd probably buy them!

-Wm.

 

[Steve_S]

If the car is currently registered with black plates then they pass on to the new owner. I personally would not surrender them, I would just say they were lost so they could stay with the car's history.

The only way I can see the black plates being taken away from the car is if it was completely unregistered, not even non-op but entirely unregistered from the DMV. At that point you would be assigning the car new plates, and black plates are not allowed under the year of manufacture program. If the car was pre-63 and had its original plates, you could reassign them to the car.