> Also, although hobbyists have been lobbying for years, the DMV will not
> transfer the black and gold plates. So if you find a vehicle with them,
it
> has probably never had it's titled transfered out of state and probably
> hasn't had an owner change since the 60s as I think the DMV requires
> surrurendering them if you purchase a car that has them. It places an
extra
> pedigree on the car, knowing that it has never lived in the rust belt.
>
> Governer Davis recently vetoed a bill that would have allowed collectors
to
> use them for vintage vehicles like all California's earlier plates. His
> reason was that new plates are reflective and aid law enforcement.
pbbbbbt
> on him.
>
> Paul Willoughby
> Torrance, CA
One note here. A black plated car can not be transferred out of state and
then back in, and keep its black plates. But, within California, a black
plated car can indeed be transferred between people in state and maintain
its black plates. At least as of last year this could happen, and I have
not heard of a change.
I am not a lawyer, nor do I know the California DMV rules and regulations.
The following is not a recommendation of action, only a situation as it was
described to me.
Under certain circumstances you can do a lost title on a vehicle in
California. A couple of ifs here in a hypothetical situation that I would
not recommend that anyone actually try, this is just for informational and
educational purposes only. If the car has been longer than X years out
registration (and I think X is 7 years, but not sure) the car and its
records fall completely out of the computer system. That many years since
last registration the title may have become misplaced. Then, next if, you
can do a lost title on it with whatever tags happen to be on the car at the
time. If your blue or white plates turned to black plates the DMV would
have no way to track this change. This assumes that the car VIN and the
plates are both out of the system and have not been reported as stolen any t
ime in their lives and you have legal ownership of them. Once a car, or
tags, are reported stolen it never again drops out of the California
computer system. Even if it exceeds the aforementioned 7 or so year
limitation.
Now, is this tag change a legal one? Not really, but mostly because of one
issue. If you intentionally change the tags, that is not legal, but if you
purchase a car meeting the above specifications and you can not confirm if
the tags are original or not it would be legal. Then you would have to do a
lost title with whatever tags are on the vehicle. When doing the lost title
you testify, with your signature, that the tags on the car (indeed all the
information you supply) are correct as far as you know. You can see that if
you change the tags you are being less than truthful on the paperwork. I
understand that more than a few cars in California have "regained" black
tags in the just described illegal manor.
Darrell
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