Year of Manufacture plates ??

[101/105guy]

Been reading about the California program to allow using the black/yellow lic. plates on older cars. Has anyone here done it ?
I have 3 sets of the old plates, but as usual the front ones are a bit thrashed. The DMV web page says that the plates must be "servicable". Will they accept refinished plates or originals with some flaws ?
Randy

[Andrew]

I've done yellow/black on my 60 Spider; went fine. They extended to black/yellow for 63-69 cars this year. Generally they don't take refurbished plates (not legal to do so) but if they're good enough, how will the DMV know they just haven't been put away for 40 years? You also need the right year sticker for your car (need a black plate plus a 67 sticker for a 67 Super).

Andrew

[Anfanuts]

There are several sites that sell vintage plates. DAZPL8.com is one I bought from (2 original 69 TX plates). Sometimes they have two.

[Tifosi]

Licenceplates.tv sells very nice reproductions of all sorts of plates with whatever you want on them.

I got a Euro style front plate for mine with #'s that match my actual registration/plates. Looks good, and not one incident with the law over it in the few years since I got it.

[Andrew]

It can be helpful to have, and fill out, the YOM form ahead of time. Here is a link to one on the web, not sure if it's current, but it's the one I used last year. I couldn't find this form on the DMV forms website, and the office I went to didn't have it.

http://strangemind.com/dmvforms/YOM_REG_352.pdf

Andrew

[red10118]

I registered my '69 TI in September with black plates and a 1969 sticker in the upper left corner. I just received my official tags -- both a SEP and a 2010 sticker, along with two aluminum 'tag holders' that can be added as an appendage to the plate. There were no instructions as to what tag goes where. I believe that I am not supposed to cover the 1969 sticker, but I assume I could use the other spot on the plate for one of the new stickers. Then I would need only one 'tag holder'. Does anyone know how this is supposed to be set up?

[goliardico]

I just tried to register a pair of black plates I bought off ebay for my 65 Giulia SS. One of the plates already had a 1965 sticker on it. My application came back rejected. Made another DMV appointment to find out why and they told me that I was not supposed to have the 1965 registration sticker. Doesn't make sense to me. She hinted that if I were to remove the sticker and re-apply, then it should be approved. She said they're not allowed to remove it. Anyone have more info on this? I was under the impression that what Jim did with his 69 TI was the way to go.

Afshin

[goliardico]

Just found this, but doesn't seem to help my case. My experience was different.

California Year Of Manufacture (YOM) License Plates

[goliardico]

Another helpful page:

eBay Guides - California YOM 1963-69 license plate registration

According to this article, the sequence number of the plate must match the production year of your car. Perhaps mine was rejected for this reason.

[red10118]

I have heard that some DMV offices are easier to work with than others. I bought the black plates off eBay and the 1969 sticker from another vendor on eBay, took it all down to the San Luis Obispo DMV and it sailed through -- no problem. The car came in out-of-state (Maine), but that should not make a difference.

Removing the sticker is not easy. I wouldn't suggest you try it. I have tried (with heat, with solvents) on some old worthless plates, and they fall apart very easily. There are folks out there who seem to know how to do it.

[esc2064]

I myself have inquired about this with the CA DMV and basically what Sacramento said was to bring the completed Year of Manufacture form along with the plates to any DMV office and they would swap or issue you that plate number to your vehicle. Since one of my cars has already been issued a new white plate for the last two years they even said that they would take it back. So it is possible.

Elcid

[wctouring#7]

I also just went through with the YOM on my Super, and I plan to do it on 4 more of my cars soon.
It really does not matter if/where you put the tab & sticker. A lot of the guys in the plate business will give you a new "year" (1968 in my case) sticker to go with the purchased plates. You do not even have to use a year sticker, after talking to the plate restorer and others who have done this, you can just use the plate like any new plate with the month on the left and the 2010 sticker on the right. You need to show the "vintage" year sticker to the DMV to go through the process, but after the fact, officials/police/ect... are only interested in the plate number and if it has a current registration sticker. Your car will then look just like any other car with original black plates. I am thinking about going this route rather than having the "tab" sticking up.
I did not have any issue with using restored plates. I have quite a collection of plates and after digging out all my matched pairs of black plates, I learned something interesting. It seems that the CA DMV does not differentiate between plate colors. The first set I tried to do the YOM with came back as "taken". This was confusing since I was holding the original black plates... Turns out there was someone with the newer "firefighter" plates that had a plate that matched my black plates (3 letters 3 numbers). This rendered my old plates useless.
Also, the plate restorers will let you know what plates are letter specific for a certain year. Meaning, my black plates that start with SCC are supposedly the letters that would have been used in 1967-68. This does not mean I could not put them on a 64, it just means that it would not have come on a 64 back in the day.
Hope this info helps.