[This is an update to a series I ran last year going through all the license plates I’ve owned since I got my first car.]
No, I haven’t moved to Canada. It’s a nice country with good theatre and a working healthcare plan, but they still have winter.
One of the cool things you can do with an antique car is find a license plate that matches the year of manufacture. It lends a sense of authenticity and it helps people identify the year of the car. The antique plate hobby is a great resource for memorabilia, and their interest in the history of license plates is great companion for the antique car hobby, and I wanted to find a good match for my 1988 Pontiac.
I had a bit of a dilemma. I bought the car in Michigan, first registered it in Colorado, then moved around the country until I settled here in Florida. If the car is old enough, you can register the car with a plate from the year it was built as a vanity plate. But the Florida plate from 1988 is, to be polite, just plain ugly, and while I like living here, the car really doesn’t have much of a connection with the state.
Then, when I was on vacation in Ontario in early August, it occurred to me that since my car was built by GM Canada in Oshawa, Ontario, it made sense to have a plate from its home province. So I did a little research with my friend David Nichols and found the perfect match through a collector in Vancouver: a 1988 Ontario plate with a SEP expiration sticker and 052 in the number. September is my birth month, and I was born in 1952. According to Dave, the letter series of C, D, and E were issued in 1988, and the colors are a good match for the rest of the car.
I can’t legally drive on public highways with the Ontario plate, so I still have my Florida tag, but when I go to a car show or parade, it will be on the car. Nice touch, eh?
