CA DMV Heritage Plates, DMV cancels program Options

[Cairo94507]

So about a year ago DMV announced the Heritage plate program so people could buy the yellow/black, black/yellow or blue/yellow plates for their vintage cars.

The black/yellow was approved as they received enough orders to hit the 7,500 target. Unfortunately the blue/yellow plates, (correct for our cars) did not garner enough interest so DMV cancelled that plate program.

I just received a notice that DMV applied the $50 credit to my license for my Six. So sad that not enough people were interested in doing this.

[Tom_T]

That's interesting, cuz I thought that the way the special plate law was written, it was for 7500 of all combined - not by each type.

A better option now is to write to your Assemblyperson & State Senator, to either make DMV authorize ALL 3 types &/or for them to instead extend out the YOM (Year of Mfgr) program out past 1969 MY, to include later MY's out to the end of the Blue/Yellow era at least (+/-1980 IIRC).

If they allowed the latter, then we could find a matching F & R set of currently unassigned Blue/Yellow plates & have them reassigned to the 914s etc. The YOM's are actually much cheaper long term, since the renewals are only $10/yr surcharge over your basic reg fees/taxes, while the Heritage sets & other personalized plates are about $70/yr extra (we have a 1960-sticker/1956-plate YOM on our vintage Avion silver-twinkie Trailer).

The other thing to write them about is to extend the smog exemption past 1975 MY - or preferably re-institute the rolling 35 year old & older rolling date for it!

Then the `76 914's will actually be attractive here again!

Keep in mind when you're scouring evil-bay & auto swap meets of all types - that you can still & before find the original plates that were on your 914 & go thru the original plate re-assignment program - assuming it was originally or in the 70's was a CA licensed car. It's a harder hunt, but it's more likely that those plate came off & went into somebody's garage boxes or wall - than got put on another car back in the day or since.

So you'd first need the current plate & VIN, then get the original or prior plate # (#'s) & then try to get the PO's from DMV.

If your 914 has been continuously registered active or Non-Op in any US state or territory - or at least not more than a 5-7 yr. gap - then it's likely that CA-DMV still has the microfilm records in their archived records storage, & you can download the DMV Info Request form pdf on their website & file it with the fees to request them to research all past owners & plates for a fee (IIRC $20 per each record - guess high if you don't know).

If not - for now - I see a lot of classic car guys who repaint their current plates to the appropriate era colors, but I understand that is strictly illegal, but maybe only a fix-it ticket if the cops bother with it.

Anyway - it's not a lost cause, but we'd just have to work with other classic car groups & the wider 70's classics owners at large, in order to get the state to bring back the Blue/Yellow Heritage plates, & we'd need to convince them that they'd make money for the state by having them in all 3 types.

Fortunately I still have my original plates, but can't get the past records due to it's not being registered nor non-op for 25+ years sitting in my garage since 5/85.

Tom
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