Stan Fickes wrote:
> (Minimal LBC content)
> My wife and I bought a '57 Chevy Bel Air 4 door wagon yesterday, and while
> registering it we learned something interesting about California state law.
> If you say you are a collector of historical or special interest cars,
> which you are maintaining for hobby or professional purposes, you can keep
> the original black plates! So, thanks to the one polite DMV worker in the
> state, we can keep the plates the car was originally registered with. So
> next time you are faced with the usual hassles at the DMV and want to keep
> the plates, tell 'em you're a collector! A collection can be as small as
> one car. Now if I can just find a pair of '51 plates for my TD... sf
>
(More LBC content)
When registering both a '63 MG 1100 and a '58 MGA coupe in California
(separate occasions), I asked if I could keep the black plates and the
very annoyed and rude DMV worker(s) said that I could keep them only if
I swore that the car(s) was/were for display purposes only and I would
never drive it/them more than 5 miles in a year. The MGA incident was
only two years ago. Have the rules changed or (more likely) were the
two people I talked to too lazy to do the extra paperwork and so lied
to me?
I hadn't brought the black plates for the 1100 to the DMV expecting
something like this, so they couldn't make me give them up. When it's
older, I'll try again and if they still say no I'll demand that they show
me the law. The MGA had the plates on it when I drove it to the DMV and
when they told me I had to give them up, I told them that the bolts were
too rusty to unscrew and I hadn't brought any tools with me. The DMV
employee made me sign a statement that I would destroy the plates as soon
as I got them off (yeah, right). The MGA was sold to someone who exports
old British cars back to England so the plates didn't really matter, but
I gave the new owner the black plates, anyway.
My '50 Chevy pickup has both the original black on yellow plates and the
replacement yellow on black plates. When it's running and needs to be
registered, if they want me to give up those plates, they're going to have
to pry them out of my cold, dead fingers.
Denise "Civil Disobedience" Thorpe
thorpe@kegs.saic.com
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