Legacy License Plate Program Still Needs More Pre-Orders

Last January the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) announced some good news for classic car fans in the form of the Legacy License Plate Program. The announcement stated that the DMV was considering the release of a series of vintage style California license plates that would include the yellow plate issued from 1956 to 1962, the black plate issued from 1963 to 1969 and the later blue plate issued from 1970 to 1982. The department said it would reproduce the old style plates and make them available to enthusiasts if at least one of the three styles received 7,500 pre-orders along with a $50 deposit for each. The California DMV also specified a program cutoff date of January 1, 2015 for the last pre-orders and deposits.

As of January 2014, the Cal DMV states that it has not yet received enough reissue plate requests to make the Legacy Plate Program a reality. So far, the three different plate pre-orders have stacked up pretty well with the 60’s black plate with yellow characters being the most popular at 6,176 pre-orders. The yellow plate with black characters has seen 1,604 pre-orders and the blue plate with yellow characters follows with 1,257. With just 1,324 more pre-orders needed to meet the minimum requirement, the black plate obviously has the best chance of kicking the program into gear. Although the January 2015 cutoff date is still many months away, if you want a Legacy Plate and have not yet placed your order, now might be a good time to get that taken care of. To download the California DMV Legacy Plate Pre-Order Form (REG 17L PDF), go to http://www.dmv.ca.gov/legacyplates/index.htm.