Art & Inspiration What to do with the license plate? A discussion.

50 Fraud,
California requirements are - in general - no lower than 12" and no higher than 60" from the ground. See VC 5201.
JimSig

 

Some states have some really crazy laws that apply to all vehicles. Glad my own state of Oregon has leeway with specialty or antique vehicles. Oregon doesn't require a front plate for these categories, and doesn't even issue two plates if you register a car as SP or AQ.
I've probably got the ugliest license plate mounting ever built, but it's so ugly I had to keep it.

 

Also with adding to the hidden plate idea don't forget about James bond

have a rotating plate, one side smooth body color with no plate, then it rotates showing the plate when the vehical is running.

just another idea

My favorite plate placement is reccessed in the bumper.

Hey Special Ed whyed you take down you post of that continental kit?

Godspeed
MrC

 

When I mounted the plate on the rear of my '53 I didn't sink it in, I built a housing around it. This was fairly common in the '52-55 era as far as I can tell. It is "okay" but I don't love it. And I used to have the frame you showed - it is not all that nice (too thin, edges not rolled enough, etc.)

I already have a '50 Chevy license guard for the the '51 Chevy coupe I am building and was planning to do something similar to what you've done - replace part of the bumper with flat plate to allow the plate to "sink in" a bit.
I am also going to run a year-of-manufacture plate because in 1951 Missouri only had rear plates so no front plate to worry about! (I already have the plate, too.) And I'm casually looking for a nice chrome frame with rounded corners like the NOS ones I had on a '54 Pontiac in the 1980s.

Keep in mind the entire car is in pieces all over my shop and won't be on the road for years, so it is safe to say you are not the only person who thinks plate mounting is important!

 

In my view, that's a perfect description of a "frenched" plate. What did you mean by frenched?

Thanks for the clarification. I guess I'll have to pucker a little when I'm driving.

I didn't remember that one of the sides was body color; that's slick.

The problem I have with any sort of hiding plate is the same one I have with airbags or hydraulics. If your car can't look the same way on the road that it does when it's parked, what's the point?

Notwithstanding pure show cars, which I think are pointless anyway, cars are to drive. The point of making changes to them is to make them look their best all the time, especially when you're going down the road in the car. How can you look cool if your car looks different/****y when it's under way?

 

You guys haven't yet discovered the coolest lil' guard in the world- '56- 59 Holden (We down under know)-

 

FWIW, I'll throw in some opinions about a few of these designs.

The '49 Buick bumper was one of the first to provide a recess for the license plate. I've always liked this bumper, although it's pretty heavy looking.



I don't know this for a fact, but I suspect that this elegant custom bumper on Pete Brock's '46 convertible used the center section from the Buick above, narrowed a bit and with some light recesses added.



I'm pretty sure that this is actually a stock '55 Chrysler bumper. In its original form there was a second bar, with backup lights at the ends, that was mounted atop the main bumper. That second bar has been deleted on this car. The remaining main bumper has a nice gap in the middle, with little protrusions for the license lights, and the whole thing is nearly the same width as the plate itself. Very tidy. I think this could be a good custom bumper for use on other makes as well.



This Cadillac has a guard mounted over the plate that I believe is a front plate guard from a '52 Kaiser (no bombs at the ends). The plate hasn't been mounted flush, but the guard provides a nice looking surround for it. Good luck finding a '52 Kaiser frame.



A**** early-style cars with the plate recessed into the body, I was proud of this detail on my '36 (not my original idea -- I pinched it from an early Chevy I saw at Pleasanton). The plate wasn't mounted from the inside; it fit into a plate-sized recess in the tail pan, and then was covered by a flush-mounted, body-color frame that hid the edges of the plate and the mounting details. In hindsight, it would've looked better if the recess had been a little shallower. Lucky for me that my black car had a black plate.



I don't like every part of this bumper, the ends are kinda busy, but I like the center section a lot. He appears to have used the usual '49 Chev guard as a frame for the plate, but has faired it into the bumper very gracefully.



Finally, this one would be expensive and complex to build, and wouldn't suit many different bodies, but it knocks me out. Larry Erickson's design for Cadzilla used a very smooth, slightly crowned surface for the bumper bar itself, and then mounted the plate behind it with a gl*** covering. The trick here is that the bumper is wide enough to completely surround the plate, and doesn't have a lot of distracting ribs or other details in its surface. I love the tailpipe detail, too.



OK, I realize that nobody asked for the movie critic's review, but I wanted to stick my opinions into the conversation.

 

Hey, that's very neat. Kind of a miniature version of the Kaiser guard on the Cadillac up the page. Do a lot of them survive?

 

The stock front bumper on a '52 has wide slots for the plate that stick out on the sides of a standard sized plate, and it mounts the plate up awkwardly high. So I welded up the slots and made a bracket to mount the plate centered on the bumper, with an old accessory frame with the clear shield in front.



I like it much better than stock.

My '47 Olds has a cool recessed area on the front bumper for a plate, and the rear bumper is smooth, so I plan to put the front bumper on the rear, with the plate in the bumper and shave my trunklid, and use the smooth bumper on the front. No good pics of that yet though.

I've definitely put some thought into license plate placement though.

 

Tony,I believe that green chopped Chrysler above was built by David Guymon,Cartwright Okla...for Wayne Zablonski,,,Dave is listed by tele if you are very interested to confirm your thoughts on its origin.

 

Plates on a bumper for me...I am also not a fan of frenching a plate.

 

They are about, if you know where to look. Finding one without rust is the challenge. They all go around the upper spot weld on the bumper mount bracket- right in the middle of that nice corner.

They came on 2 model runs. The first had these guards front & rear. The rears have that light globe bracket.

 

at the risk of sounding like a fan of "boydsters", what about an electric or pneumatic actuator that flips the license plate down below the rear bumper and also allows you to flip it up under the car out of sight when parked at a show or what not...

seriously.
it's cheap enough and simple enough to fab and install something, and you don't interrupt the natural beauty of the car or create some kind of dated customization that you don't like anymore in three years.

 

Tony
Check out So-Cals web site. They have a real cool, to me, Old style licence plate frame. Like the thin ones but with a bit of a blend on the courners.

 

I certainly agree on your shoebox, Mark. The deck lids on those cars have a very nice contour when completely shaved, but people seldom do it because of the plate recess on the stock lid.

Fuzzy, I did look at their site, but I apparently am not seeing what you are. Are you speaking of the one that's sized for early plates, with the big corner radii?

 

I owned my car for 25 years before I found a licence plate frame I liked. The one above is what I`ve got now. I only bought one at first, it was very reasonably priced, and to see if it was worth a darn. Now I buy a few when I see them so that I have them on hand. I found my at a major truckstop in the midwest. I think I had to trim the corners a bit on the license plate, but well worth it.

 

Yeah Tony brain fart on my part. It is the larger one.

 

on the spreader bar under the bed,has a thin chrome frame,Orielly's A/P they also had a thinner version,but it was about an 1/8" smaller than my Lic. Plates,I did'nt want to trim the plates

 

If you decide to hang the plate out in the open (as opposed to the behind-the-gl*** look of the Calori coupe or the '40 with the SoCal trim), I think a nice accordian trim from the 40's would be the ticket. They are a thin stainless or chrome tubular trim meant to fit over the rough edge of the plate, and adjust to different dimensions with the turn of a couple screws. I've seen repros somewhere.

I found an NOS-in-the-paper unit a few years ago at a swap for $10. Showed it to my brother and he said he saw one on Ebay for $300. But a repro should be cheaper.

 

I recall those. They were probably done in the '50s when there were still 2 different sizes of plates in wide circulation in California (probably elsewhere too).

 

A friend has a 38 Chevy cp. that rotates the plate under the car when the ignition is turned off. Lots of people can't help looking for it.

 

Here is an Article from Fordbarn about the Original Ford Accessory License Plate Frame that fits any size Plate
http://www.fordbarn.com/forum/showthread.php?t=90834

 

Just ran across this in Goodguys Gazette:



I think this guy did an outstanding job of using the busy Merc decklid trim, combined with the previously identified So-Cal frame, to replace the even busier stock handle and license mount.

 

great thread, wondering if anyone has pics of 51 ford options, I have had a Kaiser guard but am realizing they are bit bulky, what other options look good if tag is moved to the bumper?

 

This is a great thread, Tony. Sorry that it got buried for so long. Betcha' there are a lot of really creative solutions that haven't been shown here yet. I'm looking forward to more!

 

My 37 Ford with Chevy guard


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You could do what i did; chrome them! I drove it for 8 years before getting stopped and getting a ticket. Cost me $100 back then but I told the officer it was worth it for roughly $12 a year to have them on the car.

 

@scotty t