I have a neighbor who's an avid car collector (67'Ford Mustang 427, 67 Chevelle 396 and a 68 Z28 Camero among others beauties) who's daily driver is a late model Crown Vic. He had his blue and white plates custom painted in the early blk and yellow color scheme .. WHY? .. I have no idea, but they look good except the letters and spacing is a little different then the orig. early plates. He's had no problem with law enforcement(Yet) and unless the DMV wants to check his plates(why would they?) he's fine ... They don't look right to me, but he's happy!
...... David
Ballzy manuever, but I can understand why.
CA Black Plates on a 60's classic car is the icing on the cake. It's that one last thing that completes the look and feel you get when admiring a car from that pinnacle time of when cars were King in Southern California. The way those black plates are so historically associated with that era they tend to catch your eye and lend authenticity to the vehicle.
I had to almost beg the PO of my Alpine to let me keep the plates with the car when he sold it to me because since the car had no paperwork or history he was going to keep the plates and use them on a California registered Austin Healey Bug Eye Sprite he had ( he said he had 3 of those vehicles stuffed in a storage container! Among several other old cars on his property).
The CA Black Plates are so important to the look of those 60's classics that guys are scouring flea markets and eBay for the original black plates to 'complete' their restorations with one of the last 'serviceable' plates (not bent, painted or otherwise restored in any way, otherwise they can be rejected by CA DMV, in addition, if I remember correctly, even if they are serviceable, they cannot be associated with any previous vehicle, i.e., no longer in the CA DMV database). And if 'original' black plates can't be found to use in the YOM Program then guys are willing to go the much higher fee based Vanity Plates route in order to get the new black plates. I too am willing to go that route if my plates are rejected.
I know just for authenticity reasons (not an additional CA DMV requirement, I think) guys are also looking for and paying allot of money for the original plate tags that match the year their car was originally first registered. I was lucky enough to be able to carefully peel back the many years of old sticker tags to get down to the very first tag, the original 1967 blue tag from when it was originally registered, still shiny and like new looking after being completely covered up for some50 years or so.
For a 60's California classic car owner, a set of original CA Black Plates are indeed a prized possession and if lucky enough to be original to the car, you've hit the jackpot (well, for bragging rights anyway
).
