Pagoda SL Group
W113 Pagoda SL Group => General Discussion => Topic started by: Shvegel on November 14, 2020, 16:45:24
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Just got a picture of my new plates from my wife (I am at sea). Very excited.
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Great number, Shvegel. It is good to see that Ohio allows personalized historic plates. We can only get a random number here in Alabama. They do however permit use of a plate from the year of production of your car. In this case they supply a vintage sticker.
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Ohio allows "Year Plates" too, However only for the years that had different plates every year. At one point in the 70s, they changed to stickers and they cannot be used.
The thing with "personalized" historic plates is, you have to pay every year to renew them. Sort of negates the purpose. Regular historic plates are good for 50 years and do not have to be renewed every year. They also have restrictions on what you can do with the vehicle. You are supposed to drive it to special events only.
There are also "collector plates". You have to apply for those and your vehicle model has to be on a list the BMV keeps for that purpose. No restrictions on where and how often you drive it. You must have another form of main transport, however.
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You are very lucky . Here in Italy we cannot personalize the plates. The originality of the plates in Italy gives more value to the car . I still I have the same plate since 1979. Unfortunatly not the original from 1967.
If I lose or they become damaged, I’m forced to put a new plate like a normal regular car . Very unfare .
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Hey Mauro - there are vendors that will make for you a perfect copy of your plates, following in your case the Italian standards. In the US I found such a company. So you can have copies made, drive with those, and keep the originals in a safe place. If one of the copies is lost, stolen or damaged, you still have the originals (and can have spare copies made). Probably not 100% legal but who's going to know.
For example: https://www.customeuropeanplates.com/?gclid=Cj0KCQiAnb79BRDgARIsAOVbhRrwTfJDCOr8XuLbbZgfmpFPgi_sj5FU546KDEf2cYQsJ8ldQL2mefYaAqbbEALw_wcB
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This is true, but is very risky. If they catch you with home made plates is very high fine .
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The 280 SL plate was on the car when I bought it 15 + years ago. I kept them until last year when I replaced with the 63 plate with a 68 sticker (my car's year of production). In Washington you can use a vintage plate if it was a plate that you could have had on your car when originally registered. I had to do a little convincing at the Dept. of Licensing to let me use the 63 plate but because there were still some of those available in 68 it worked. The advantage of the vintage plate is that once you register it you never have to pay another registration fee. The personalized 280 SL was expensive to maintain every year, plus I like the AMA 113 on the vintage plate, something I just happened to find on ebay and then had it refurbished and cleaned up.
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California has a similar "year of manufacture - YOM" program for 1980 cars or older. Between 1963 and 1969 the plates were black with gold colored letters and numbers and the plate must have an attached valid sticker for the year the car was manufactured. When approved the DMV will issue a sticker for the current year that must displayed on a separate tab that the DMV provides but looks cheap and ugly.
After a long search I was able to find an old 1964 plate and an old 1968 plate with the numbers 113 and fitting letters that I refurbished and combined with Michael Salemi's SL113 badge (thank you Michael!).
I believe "kampala" also has an old 113 plate.
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Alfred, I read with interest your post about your "new" plates. Great job on refurbishment and finding "MBZ 113". They look good as new. One item that caught my eye was the DMV requirement that your plates must have the original date sticker showing and a separate tab for the current years's stickers. My Black plates are original to the car and I have applied my registration renewal sticker to the plate every year. I have peeled them off occasionally as they would probably be a 1/2 inch thick by now. I am assuming this requirement must only be for YOM plates.
John
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Hi John,
I believe you are correct, this requirement applies only to YOM plates. It would be nice if one could just place the yearly sticker over the old one and forget about the extra tab.
My guess is that the DMV wants to distinguish the old YOM plates from the newer "gold and black" special plates that you can order and pay an extra fee for it yearly. These don't need the extra tab.
I had ordered one of those previously for my 280SL. The requirement in this case was that if you show the year of the car on the plate it must match the VIN. Strange rules.