By all means, keep those Black plates registered.
The new plates will be reflectorized, more characters with smaller type
size, and readily identifiable.
There will definitely be a difference.
The last plate 'restorer' I spoke to told me that he just makes a brand
new reproduction for people that want a restored plate.
The plate looks spot on, with paint color, finish, embossing, edge of
yellow lettering on the black, mounting holes, all look exactly like it
was originally.
If a collector is on the fence, an original black-plate car (not year of
manufacture) is a big, big PLUS.
In California, a year of manufacture plate is another way to get a black
plate on the 63-69 cars -- many people use this to get the plate in use
at the
time of original sale on the vehicle -- cute, and expensive, involving
an extra tag that id's that it is currently registered, attached to the
year of manufacture plate.
In my case, I already was stuck with a blue plate on my 100 for the 40
yrs I have owned the car, so I have sprung for one of the new
personalized Black plates, we'll see if it ever arrives.
Lou
San Diego
On 6/29/2015 11:00 AM, healeys-request@autox.team.net wrote:
> From: Healeys [mailto:healeys-bounces@autox.team.net] On Behalf Of Rohan Marr
> Sent: Saturday, June 27, 2015 4:42 PM
> To: Austin Healey List
> Subject: [Healeys] California Legacy License Plate program
>
>
>
>
> So why the mixed feelings, well original black plates had some value and
> meaning - the car was an original California car. Unfortunately my plates
> have really deteriorated, and after a few steep driveways (you know how low
> our cars are) I have bent them in half one by one until they broke in half. I
> only ever had one plate on the rear and swapped it ? the current one is
> hanging on by a thread. So I was looking to see if someone would reproduce
> them and I remember a link to someone who ?unofficially? remade them
> published on this list a few years ago. These new ones will reportedly use
> the same dye press tooling as the originals out of Folsom Prison (not sure
> where I read that), but unlike the original these will have a modern
> reflective coating and more importantly be available for use on any vehicle,
> both old and new, or car, truck or motorcycles. I know how I feel about a
> Prius with black plates!
>
>
>
> So what I really want to do is replace my plates with the same number etc
> with an original look, or do I want to give up on that and bite the bullet
> for a vanity plate with the new black?
>
>
>
> What does everyone think of this?
>
>
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