Any license plate geeks?

[Chance]

I kinda have a thing for license plates also. Here in Texas they change them every time the vehicle sells. I believe we can keep them, or the dealer tosses them, so even old cars have new plates if that person just purchased the vehicle. Its kind of a waste, maybe they recycle them?

My deal is I try and make acronyms with the letters. When traveling I always like to see how many different states I see while on that trip also.

 

[Manuheleku]

Thought this was funny!

 

[Judge]

It's funny when I see a plate that really is an intended acronym....that takes me a while to figure out.

Occasionally I can laugh at myself.

 

[Sherlock77]

Yep, living in California so long it seemed like a strange concept. That registration in Nevada is for the driver- not the vehicle. So the plate follows the driver from one car to the next. Though after last year, everyone gets a new plate every 8 years whether they want it or not due to wear and tear.

I just hope there isn't much of a lag between when they send me my latest registration sticker and when they send me new plates. I can just see so many Nevadans just putting their new sticker on the old plates rather than waiting for the new ones.

The wear and tear on license plates let alone cars. I've seen some very worn out license plates here in Alberta if the person has lived here for many years, especially as our basic design goes back to the early 1980's, we haven't had a change in years.

This poor old 1970's Austin Marina (think British) was purchased new by the owner, an interesting man I met a few times. He never sold it and kept driving it, all the way up to 325K miles No matter how rusty it got as a vehicle safety was never required again, I took this photo in 2011, he has since sold his house and I would assume the car finally went to the scrapyard.

But on the topic of license plates, he would have gotten a new license plate for it back in the 1980's, and I'm sure it was quite worn down.

 

[oregano]

Yeah, I was a HUGE plate geek as a kid, a little kid, like age 10. I had all sorts of plates on my bedroom wall. I got rid of them ages ago, but I was recently digging through a box and found an old California "sunshine" plate from the mid 80s that apparently was on an old utility trailer my parents had. This is the plate that has a sun rising behind the word "CALIFORNIA" and at the bottom it says "The Golden State". I think it's the coolest plate California ever issued. I'm thinking of displaying it somehow.

Some of those old cars made before the advent of smog controls and computerized engines were pretty tough. Back then anybody could fix a car themselves. Today, you are forced to take it to a dealer where the "mechanic" simply plugs a device into the computer, and the computer tells him what's wrong. Finding a mechanic who will actually do anything besides regurgitate what the computer says is pretty much impossible. If your car does something weird like develop an electrical problem that the computer thinks is something major that is unfixable, you can't find a mechanic who will actually look at it, he'll just offer you a few hundred bucks to scrap the car.

 

[JamesBon92007]

At classic car shows which I frequent, if I see a car I've never seen before I will look at the license plate, it might indicate if a collector just purchased a new or perhaps just finished a restoration, etc...

AI used to have one of the old six digit license plates about six years ago, but when my car was stolen I had to get a new license plate with the replacement plate, the new ones with seven digits. I still wish I had the old license plate, I have this perception that the older license plate tells other people that I'm a longtime resident of my province and longtime driver, something I lack now.
.

I know what you mean.

Also, I memorize the license number of the car in front of me at stop lights. I don't know why. I remember the license number of the first car my parents had when I was a toddler.

The guy down the street has license plates all over his fence.

The state of California is now issuing Yellow on Black license plates, replacing the White on Blue plates. They did it because it's cool. The old plates were Yellow on Black and you could always tell if an old, classic car was originally from California by the license plate. You can still tell because the old ones were six digit and the new ones are seven digit.

California is a very cool state with a very cool government. I am totally uncool. I am thinking of moving to Mexico.