Cars, Trucks, Bikes, Project Cars, DIY, Travel, Adventure, Podcast, Videos
By Kamil Kaluski
Oct 19, 2020
Picking one vanity license plate from all the ones everyone sees around is not easy. And that’s not really what I am asking for. But is there one that stuck out to you?
I saw this RECALL license plate at this week’s 24 Hours of Lemons race. It would be meaningless on most other cars. But on this Audi Q7 TDI, it made all the sense. My second favorite license plate of the weekend, once again, fitting the car, is below. So, what’s yours?
East Coast Editor. Races crappy cars and has an unhealthy obsession with Eastern Bloc cars. Current fleet: Ford Bronco, Lexus GX 470, and a Buick Regal crapcan racecar.
Jeff Glucker
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1015/7033/products/5_531cd5b1-5283-434d-9320-a73dc98d4e35.jpg?v=1530303093
Suddenly, it all makes sense.
Back in Rockford, Illinois in the mid-1980s there was a 911 registered as “EXEMPT”. We figured it might be an early attempt at hacking the DMV computers to have traffic tickets automatically dismissed.
Visiting my sisters at college a long time ago, BMW ahead of us at a light had “SUBMIT” as the plate. Sister’s boyfriend leans out the window, hollers “what’s the significance of your license plate?”
Driver was a lawyer.
Could have been a wrestler, or a dominatrix I suppose
Yeah, we all had our theories, “lawyer” was not one of them…!
I’ve got a few, there was a lady that lived in our neighborhood way back when, with the plate GURAQT. Took my a while to figure out what that meant. If I remember correctly it was on a screaming yellow GLC, as in Mazda GLC.
A friend of my had IEATBMW on his heavily modified 510.
My former sister in-law had NVMYSX on her 240SX.
Finally there is a guy running around that I’ve seen a couple of times and a friend has seen, snapped a pic and texted it to me. NOTACOP on of course a retired Police Interceptor.
How about
HYFRND
On Billy Gibbons’ hot rod, “Cadzilla”, what I saw at the Oakland Museum.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e4de8ea35c2c07fc90257b8f33fbcac3cb9f4a230a88fac78bafc7ef24dc1a1e.jpg
This Mini used to be around San Francisco a few years ago. The
owner told me he got it by the DMV by saying it stood for, “I love
bright days and sunny mornings”
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a9af2874ec587dddc67cd0207439d458ba43a75a5a4dba992b1eb7055f3838d1.jpg
I saw a car on the highway with the plate 1EZTO69. The woman driving was probably 70.
the heart is useful. i see SUM1[heart]ZU around here and it makes me smile.
on the same block is a bagged GTI with the plates “DYING”.
Back in the early eighties, vendors in Hot Rod magazine sold little stickers with a screw on them, for these such situations.
Around the same time bumper stickers proclaiming the owner’s affinity for their pet were popular…
Oh how lovely that the sunshine state supports such a nice attitude!
But on that heart, what’s the pool of non-letter symbols one can use, Dingbats, Unicode?
Heart, hand, star, and plus sign. This page explains the program and the actual application form (not linked here) makes it appear that only a single example of one, and only one, such symbol is allowed per plate:
https://cccsh.ca/kids-plates/
…that hand… it doesn’t look right..
https://en4.66f.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/PhotoKidsPlate.gif
Give kids a physical deformity? Why on earth would you want to do that?!?
No, no, it clearly says “Give kids a tree shrew’s hand print.”
This is maybe the only license plate I ever took a picture of. It just seemed like such a non-sequitur.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9ab6a88bcf85a14dda8a6a5193919309a696880c2a9d819ef273966ef9322f33.jpg
In about 2006, I saw a 7 Series BMW Utah plated IRTFM. This was shortly after someone in the Philippines could not get out of their current, new E67 High Security, as Windows CE had crashed and locked him in. He had to call emergency services, who broke him out after quite a few hours.
I haven’t seen it for quite a while, but there was a Suzuki Cappuccino running around central Auckland NZ with the plate ‘DECAF’.
On the basis, perhaps, that to make a car that small, you have to leave something out.
https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Suzuki_Cappuccino_91-97_30.jpg
But small can be very caffeinated, which is why they should have called this the Suzuki Espresso.
They probably would have if they owned the name but Stellantis, (PSA+FCA) own the name, last seen on the Neon based 1994 Pymouth Expresso concept car.
http://www.carstyling.ru/resources/concept/large/1994_Chrysler_Plymouth_Expresso_02.jpg
http://www.carstyling.ru/resources/concept/large/94plymouth_expresso_1.jpg
Undoubtedly. At the time, Suzukis European distributor was the same person who owned Bugatti (Romano Artioli) and he even designed a replacement that was to be called the Espresso with a view to making a car that could be sold in mainland Europe (the Cappuccino was sold in the UK, but seems to have fallen foul of Euro regulations). https://www.motorauthority.com/news/1104870_when-bugatti-designed-a-car-for-suzuki
Look, it’s a PT Cruiser 😉
A PT Cruiser after appearing in ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit?’
Vanity plates are kind of new here, and being priced at 965$, people look at them as quite…dumb. This is the one I remember best so far, translating to “the Musk” and, this being Norway, obviously on a Tesla:
https://i.ibb.co/SvH5bVv/P1240598.jpg
I call my car “gliset” (“the big smile”), which is a bit corny moniker, but also somewhat common for big cars with big engines. Rally driver Petter Solberg would use that word a lot. Strangely, nobody has reserved this plate yet and I have been debating with myself how dumb I am ever since I found that out…
Unfortunately my friend (a young mother and lawyer) was given this sequential plate by the state and refused to put it on
Vanity plates are kind of new here, and being priced at 965$, people look at them as quite…dumb. This is the one I remember best so far, translating to “the Musk” and, this being Norway, obviously on a Tesla:
https://i.ibb.co/SvH5bVv/P1240598.jpg
I call my car “gliset” (“the big smile”), which is a bit corny moniker, but also somewhat common for big cars with big engines. Rally driver Petter Solberg would use that word a lot. Strangely, nobody has reserved this plate yet and I have been debating with myself how dumb I am ever since I found that out…
How does it work, are those just alias plates (so you can sell the registered car but can keep the COOCHIE plate for your next one), or are those regular plates that follow the VIN?
Also, what are a thousand dollars when you have to pay five hundred for getting a car that’s not dark gray… oh.
Yes, alias plates that are not resellable. Every car keeps its original designated sequence, and you cannot use vanity plates when leaving the country:
https://www.vegvesen.no/Kjoretoy/Kjop%2Bog%2Bsalg/Kj%C3%B8ret%C3%B8yopplysninger?registreringsnummer=musken
I saw IMINMY on a Honda Element.
Someone who got in early, OLDCAR on a 1968 Holden.
Guy with a 1972 Javelin kept getting asked “what’s that?” – IMACAR