Ordered Historic License Plate

[Matt42]

I ordered an Arizona Historic Vehicle license plate for my truck last week. (Hasn't arrive yet.) Those plates look like this:

We bought the truck new in 1996, so it came with one of the last-issued maroon license plates. Then I moved the truck's original maroon license plate to my daily driver. Now both our daily driver cars have maroon license plates. Arizona car enthusiasts know what that means.

 

[NIsaacs]

 

[jffmaz]

I bought those for a few of my rigs years ago. They used to have red letters. As years went by the copper tarnished and the red lettering faded, now you can hardly read the numbers and letters. As AZ only requires rear license plates, I still have the pristine as new ones saved I never used on the fronts. Are the 2023 versions solid copper as the older ones were? Are the letters and numbers embossed as well as painted anymore?

 

[Iron Duke II]

The initial AZ historic plates bought for a ‘87 chevy pu when it reached age 25 have darkened since then, the historic plate for the ‘96 2nd gen after a couple years is still bright copper color, the letters are embossed.

 

[jffmaz]

Bought mine in mid 90s when I worked on an MVD station in Lake Havasu city. We built a detached building that was to be used for vehicle emission testing. Wasn't any testing at the time so I thought if I got the historic plates might buy me some leeway on the smog testing for my "Historic Vehicles". As it turned out, they still haven't started the testing or requirements in rural AZ. Don't know what they eventually used the building for, but it had an exhaust evac system in it for testing with the garage door closed. Did a duplicate in BHC shortly after the LHC one. I also still have the maroon/white plates on a couple of my rigs, that's my favorite AZ plate.

 

[Matt42]

View attachment 138908

Nick: Those green over yellow license plates were still common when I got transferred here. MVD issued us sequential maroon plates beginning with CTH when we relicensed. I kept track of one of those cars, after selling it at a time when the plate went with the car. The third owner turned it into a hockey puck on black ice in the PNW, so the license number was retired. I had kept the front plate when we sold it, so I inquired with MVD about reinstating it. The answer, which I expected, was that it would be very difficult.

 

[Joe Mc]

back in 2020, I'm in PA, I got "Classic" for my truck. When I saw annual registration cost go from around $68 to $180 (or something extreme) I said there's got to be a better way. This was during Covid and PA DOT has never been known to be very "expeditious" it only took 6 months and some help from a local tags place to make it happen. Best part is the expiration date on the registration card reads "Permanent" = no more annual fee, still have to get it inspected every year and the rule is "occasional" driving. Although no real definition of "occasional" PA DOT suggested no more than once a week. Don't drive it that much anymore, try to get it out every week and bring everything up to operating temps just to keep it fluid. I do occasionally drive it 3-4 times a week and I've never seen a State Trooper waiting to pull me over...

 

[Matt42]

Joe: Historic vehicle plates aren't permanent in Arizona. But once my truck got to that certain age, a five year renewal worked out to under $40 per year. The historic plate allowed me to move the truck's maroon plate to my daily driver. I still need to get a smog inspection for the truck every year, though. It has passed every time so far.

It doesn't get a lot of miles put onto it. Especially few now, since the dashboard is out for replacement and gauge installation. The interior looks like it exploded. This is a picture my wife took of where the instrument cluster used to be.
View attachment 139157

Next up is a repaint.

 

[Matt42]

Adding the image didn't work in edit. Here it is as another post.

 

[GrantP]

Joe: The historic plate allowed me to move the truck's maroon plate to my daily driver. I still need to get a smog inspection for the truck every year, though. It has passed every time so far.

You might consider getting classic car insurance on the truck. I pay $10 a month for the insurance on my 82 Jeep and that eliminates the emissions test in AZ. Doing a quick search I didn't see anything that excluded diesel vehicles from that exemption.

 

[Matt42]

You might consider getting classic car insurance on the truck. I pay $10 a month for the insurance on my 82 Jeep and that eliminates the emissions test in AZ. Doing a quick search I didn't see anything that excluded diesel vehicles from that exemption.

I will look into that once I get the repaint finished. Who do you use?

 

[GrantP]

I will look into that once I get the repaint finished. Who do you use?

I went with Grundy on a friends recommendation. As cheap as they were I didn't bother to shop around.