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PTBJ said:
Interesting thread this, especially reading about the different regulations in different countries and states. In New Zealand you can create and own personalized plates, transferring them from one car to another. You can of course sell the plate you own to someone else. The personalised plate number is made up of up to six letters/numbers or a combination. I was lucky enough to buy this plate recently, Its the only "HEALEY" plate in the country and is currently on our 65 BJ8. To my surprise another plate recently came up for sale......65 BJ8. We now :congratulatory: have two Healey related plates and will be swapping the plates around to put the HEALEY plate on our 59 BT7 and the 65 BJ8 plate on the BJ8.
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PTBJ: If your car is the one that I think it is, then the BJ8 Registry has the continuous ownership history for back through 11 or 12 owners (depending on whether you are recorded as the current one) to the original, who bought it on 6 May 1964. If you are interested in discussing this, please contact me directly: sbyers@ec.rr.com
 
I live in Oregon also. In the 1990's I was a single guy and so for fun I got a custom plate ....... "UNWED". In those years that I was single, I had that plate on my 1970 Mercedes, then my '54 Jaguar MK7 and then on my 1961 3000 "rat Healey" with the Datsun 280Z motor that I drove to Park City, Utah in 1997 for the big Healey Meet that year. I sure wish I had a photo of that Healey with that plate. Maybe someone on this list has one. The car was a total rat but the mechanicals were great..... and it was faster than stink. It sure got a lot of attention at that meet in 1997 and it was one of the fastest cars in the hill-climb.
 
I'm in Oregon as well, and the "problem" with antique plates is that, technically, you can then only drive to shows or in parades. There was a nasty cop on the west side of town and knew this... and would try to stop anyone he repeatedly saw. 'Course, the answer was always "just adjusted the brakes and need to test them."
So, I still use "vanity" plates (which aren't cheap and need to be regularly renewed).
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Bob_Spidell said:
How'd you sneak that one past the censors?
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VERY difficult. :cool: It's a long story, but the short version is that there is a Calvin & Hobbes book entitled "Scientific Progress Goes Boink" and the special-plate desk in the capital had a supervisor that had a child that also had the book. I had gone through some appeals and that book finally made it possible. When I transferred the plates to a '73 Mini I sort of hid them while dealing with a DMV agent at the counter (who struggled to override the computer-generated rejection). However, when I transferred the plates to the current Bugeye, I only got laughs.

It's always been a favorite word at our place when the kids were growing up... meaning, for us, "to happen suddenly." Of course I knew of the other meaning. :angel2:

Anyway, the word IS on the list of banned plates in Oregon but I've been allowed to keep it (and I'm not going to give them back).
 
My Healey is 2 zia symbol 654. The 2 represents my county and the colors white with red letters indicate this plate belonged to a politician. It is an original 1956 New Mexico plate and was given to me by a really good friend, also a Healey enthusiast and former racer of note.

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As Reid indicated, here in Oregon you can source original plates which I've done for both my Healey's including the tags dated for each individual year. I've never been stopped for the "expired" tags, though I keep the current ones in each car.

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My favorite vintage plate was at Monterey on an original Porsche 356. Pretty rare I would think....

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Dougie:
Neat that you haven't been stopped for the tags! I've been too paranoid... but then I'm doing the vanity plate thing right now.
I also have some vintage plates that have "59" on them (from the year of the car), but planned to restore them. Seems the going rate for a full restoration is about $100.
 
Well here in Calif. You need two plates.Vanity plates belong to the person and not the car. When I bought 60 Frog from Scott he had to sign a document indicating he was assigning the plate to me. It was only one plate on the back. After being cited by a really nice highway Patrolman for only having one plate. I had 30 days to fix that and get the citation signed off by a peace officer that I now had two plates, and send the signed citation to the H P. Since I had one plate I could get two more if I turned in the one I had. that was back in October. it takes up to 12 weeks to get vanity plates. I have a temporary piece of paper. that is good through 12-31-2014. you are supposed to tape it on your back windshield but since I don't have a back windshield and if I put it on the front wind shield it would block my view I keep it in the side pocket. i actually wish some cop would stop me for no plates so I could show him the paper work and get him to sign off on the citation that I have ordered two plates.Otherwise I will wait for the plates to arrive and then drive to some local police stationand have them sign off that I have two plates. I will send the signed off citation to the Hp and explain that I could not meet the 30day deadline because the Calif. DMV Can't meet the needs of the Highway patrol. There is no fine involved but they can do bad things to you if you don't comply. I am keeping a close eye on my first born just in case.
 
I've heard about these 1 plate post problems. Good that at least there's no fine. That's never been an issue for me in Oregon (especially with no front bumper). Interesting that the vanity plates belong to the owner. I keep my second plate in the car just in case... but I intend on keeping them if the car is ever sold.
 
It is ridiculous that just because "Boink" has taken on a sexual meaning it has now become a prohibited word, whether for license plates or otherwise. My extensive investigation (meaning a google search) reveals that "Boink" is listed in Merriam-Webster's online dictionary and is described as either a transitive verb or an interjection, both "imitative of a reverberating sound" with its first known use having been in 1987.

True, MW also states its slang usage as a synonym for "copulation" but just because the sexual meaning has lately made it into "urban slang" does not mean that its has been co-opted from general or non-slang usage. How about the term "Hooked up"? Just because that is widely used by a younger generation to mean that they engaged in sex does that mean that I cannot use it to tell someone that I caught a fish? I mean REALLY!

Let's get "Boink" the respect it deserves. Its inclusion in comic strips, etc. should be permitted as it was originally used. And Forum Member Boink should not have to fear censorship when he takes his Sprite out for a ride. Of course, there will not be any boinking allowed, esp. while driving.
 
LOL YEAHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And, actually, there is a woman in North Carolina that also has Boink plates. People often get a good laugh when a Boink zips by them.
Funny that, in Oregon, the list of unacceptable words on plates is HUGE... HUGE. 'Course what one person sees as "unacceptable" is not another's... so the list includes lots of odd things that supposedly have reference to sex, drugs, etc. (whatever "etc." is). There was a woman mentioned in the paper that struggled to get "69" on her 1969 El Camino, and did so, but when she tried to move it to a 1974 El Camino it was taken away. Another woman by the name of Barbara Shaw wanted "BS" plates but they were disallowed. So, the game here is to try to come up with something cryptic with numbers... and, evidently, people at the Special Plate Desk (in Salem, OR) try to figure them out before approving.

I'm VERY lucky to get to keep the Boink plates.

[PS - the word in Europe is actually "Bonk" :playful: ]
 
Down here in far eastern North Carolina, the official music is "beach music" and the official dance is the "shag". In England, that word means something entirely different. When an English friend saw an ad here for "shag lessons", he asked: "You mean you have to take lessons for that?" I've seen a plate with SHAGGER on it. I'm not sure what was meant, though.
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Another amusing bit of confusion between England and here...

A friend/colleague was giving a medical lecture (on radiology) and made reference to an "on the job injury." The audience laughed. On-the-job means something else in the UK if you get my drift. :highly_amused:
 
Seeing as how urban slang is in a constant state of change you must have to be pretty hip and clued in to what's going down in order to be a license plate censor.

To change the topic a bit my bitch is that Maryland, like a number of other states, still requires front license plates and no car looks good with one. I have some Healey friends who carry the front plate in the passenger compartment but I'll pass on the gamble of running into a cop who wants to be a *****. I really don't understand why this practice remains seeing as how the state could cut its costs down substantially, but no one asked me.

NOTE--I just edited this post by adding this paragraph. The Forum automatically substituted the above asterisks for my original word which refers to a portion of the male anatomy. Isn't it ironic that we are here talking about censorship and it's all around us?
 
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With my old 100-4 (long gone), the front plate hung very low and behind the front bumper. Like everything under the car, it was scuffed a bit but at least it was reasonably well hidden. Don't know what the non-bumper big-Healey crowd does (if driven a lot).
 
I'd make a terrible censor. I didn't previously know that boink had a meaning beyond the cartoon one, where it's used if something runs into - boinks into - another thing. Something like that.

I had wondered briefly about Boink's handle here - and maybe we already know enough! - but then a lot of "usernames" here are obscure; inside jokes, I guess. I had recently posted on the Moderators board that I wished that the BCF collected real names when people register. Of course nothing prevents people from using assumed names, but there's a lot of anonymity on the BCF (and most other such fora, too), and that's usually not a good thing.

Anyway.
 
Seems like user names are indeed all over the map. I've used it back with the early days of the MiniMania bulletin boards (in the 1990s which is where I used to hang out)... but I never hid my identity, which is a nice thing about the "About Me" stuff in the profiles... and I always sign with my real first name. Somehow I thought real names were collected upon registration.

Besides, I figured that if it was a no-no name, it really would have been censored (like BCF does for certain words in texts/posts). Now I'm wondering if there is a "Bonk" (which doesn't mean much here but sure does in the UK).

As for double, triple and more meanings, I think the list is endless. True, I did know of the "other" meaning of Boink, but that was half the fun. I prefer the cartoon one (and the one you know, Reid). :rolleye: My kids always loved the license plate when they were young and I had it on the early Minis. Not sure it would have ever felt right on the 100-4 (or any larger car). Fits a small car. :fat:
 
Reid--

Not to worry about your being unhip: the Forum apparently has some built-in censorship that recognizes certain words and substitutes asterisks as happened in my last post where I used a word starting with letter "P" which refers to the male member. But how did they know I was not using that word intending one of the other meanings such as "To make a small hole" or "to make one's ears stand erect when on alert (referring to a horse or dog)?

Those darn censors always ascribe the worst motivations to me!
 
Hey, things change. What if "Healey" becomes a foul word in the future? Then what?! :chuncky:

Besides, it's usually ME that is out-of-the-loop on popular cultural references. Part of the development of a geezer.
 
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