{"id":479337,"date":"2026-09-29T12:34:15","date_gmt":"2026-09-29T12:34:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/479337\/"},"modified":"2026-09-29T12:34:15","modified_gmt":"2026-09-29T12:34:15","slug":"commentary-from-stamped-metal-to-digital-the-strange-history-of-our-gldn-st8-pl8s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/479337\/","title":{"rendered":"Commentary: From stamped metal to digital, the strange history of our GLDN ST8 PL8S"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Your answer, please — and no going out to the garage and peeking:<\/p>\n

What are the colors of the California license plate?<\/p>\n

Just hazard a guess. You must see them a gazillion times a day.<\/p>\n

Fine. They\u2019re blue on white. But you could have said gold on black, or even red on white, and you\u2019d have been right.<\/p>\n

Ever since California issued its first license plates, in 1914, it\u2019s been trying to keep up with our passion for automobiles.<\/p>\n

We now stand at a smidge over 39 million Californians and a smidge over 36 million registered vehicles. Even AI can\u2019t speculate on how many cars have rolled over the roads here in the decades since 1914, but the state has been ever harder pressed to keep changing plate colors and numbers and letters to match those numbers and to dodge any duplication.<\/p>\n

Get the latest from Patt Morrison <\/p>\n

Los Angeles is a complex place. Luckily, there’s someone who can provide context, history and culture.<\/p>\n

By continuing, you agree to our Terms of Service<\/a>, which include arbitration and a class action waiver. You agree that we and our third-party vendors may collect and use your information, including through cookies, pixels and similar technologies, for the purposes set forth in our Privacy Policy<\/a> such as personalizing your experience and ads. <\/p>\n

And now the DMV has made its latest switcheroo. Since 1980, regular plates have been constructed as number-letter-letter-letter-number-number-number. That entire combination has now run out<\/a>, so California license plates began this year using number-number-number-letter-letter-letter-number.<\/p>\n

Oh for those simpler days \u2014 like 1905, when California first required \u201cmotor cars\u201d to be registered, but didn\u2019t issue license plates. Drivers sometimes made their own, carved from wood, stamped onto metal, the numbers mounted on screens, or painted onto boards.<\/p>\n

In 1914, the state realized it had better get a handle on this, a way to distinguish all of those thousands of black Ford Model Ts from one another, and to put some dough in the state\u2019s road repair kitty while they were at it.<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

A wall of license plates at the Elwood Haynes Museum, in the former mansion owned by Elwood Haynes, an inventor who is credited with being the first to produce cars commercially in 1894, photographed in 2022 in Kokomo, Ind. <\/p>\n

(Kent Nishimura \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

Voila, universal registration, and the license plates to prove it. Registration fees were set by horsepower. If your horseless carriage chugged along at under 20 horsepower, it cost you $5, but if your car ran on 60 hp, you speed demon, you\u2019d pay $30 to register it.<\/p>\n

In 1914, the state had 123,504 registered vehicles. Angelenos owned 43,099 of them, and in short order, they all bore the first state license plate: 16 by 9 inches, white letters and numbers on red enamel on steel.<\/p>\n

In the same package of auto rules was another requirement: a driving license. It bore the same descriptors we have today, with height, weight, eye and hair color, address. Photos would not appear on licenses until 1958. Drunk drivers were also warned that they would pay fines or spend time in the pokey if caught. The state speed limit was set at 30 mph outside of town, and \u201cmotor vehicles must be kept under control so as not to frighten horses.\u201d<\/p>\n

And Tesla drivers take note: from their very beginning \u2014 except for four or five years because of material shortages \u2014 California has required license plates on the back and the front bumpers. Maybe Elon Musk didn\u2019t like the look of a front license plate on his pretty-pretty car, and Teslas aren\u2019t made with the usual front-plate installation accommodations. New Teslas come with a plate mounting kit, but it\u2019s in the trunk for you to install yourself. Look around and see how few Teslas use them. The fine for not having a front plate can run up to $250. The CHP and the LAPD might make a nice little pot of dough if they enforced the plate law.<\/p>\n

In 1914, the state\u2019s first official license plate, number 1, went to Chester Weaver, a San Francisco Studebaker dealer. Actually it was won by a Chico car dealership in a lottery drawing among several applicants, but Weaver was bound and determined to have it, and paid what a newspaper at the time described as a \u201chandsome bonus\u201d to the Chico men to get it.<\/p>\n

\"License <\/p>\n

License plates from across the United States adorn a wall inside classic car dealership Beverly Hills Car Club in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

(Mel Melcon \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

The 1915 license plate was \u201cpoppy color\u201d \u2014 yellow with black lettering, chosen cannily to promote the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco, a sort of world\u2019s fair.<\/p>\n

By the next year, the state had realized all of the trouble and expense of issuing a new plate every year, and so the plate for 1916 was blue on white, and good until 1920, with a little metal tag in the corner changed each year, amusing as little Monopoly tokens.<\/p>\n

In 1916 it was a little silver-toned lead California grizzly bear \u2014 a creature soon to be driven extinct \u2014 and in 1917 a California poppy. In 1918, it was a small lead mission bell, and in 1919, the registration symbol was a red tin star.<\/p>\n

The blue-and-white plate was made in Los Angeles by the California Metal Enameling company, in a northeast L.A. neighborhood called Bairdstown \u2014 now a part of El Sereno. Not until 1925 did the state\u2019s purchasing agent recommend that license plates be made by inmates at Folsom State Prison for money saving and \u201cadvantageous work for the convicts.\u201d That didn\u2019t end up happening until 1947. (Inmates still pound out about 45,000 plates per day<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

\"Represa <\/p>\n

A tour group gathers for a photo at the iconic entrance of Folsom Prison. <\/p>\n

(Luis Sinco \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

The state in 1920 also gave up the costlier enamel plates, and switched to stamped metal, in white on black, or black on white, then white on green, black on yellow, yellow on black. They were cheap enough that California could once again send out new plates every year, and in 1939, the plate was yellow on dark blue, and across the top was the phrase \u201cCalifornia World\u2019s Fair,\u201d in recognition of the Golden Gate International Exposition.<\/p>\n

The metal demands in World War II put a stop to the annual new license plate. Instead, metal strips showing the current registration were fastened atop the existing plate. In the war year of 1944, the registration was a piece of paper inside the windshield.<\/p>\n

What inevitably followed license plates were license plate thefts, that beloved switcheroo getaway technique of movie criminals and real ones. The Oakland Enquirer in 1917 wrote about an infuriated Berkeley baker whose plates had been stolen. \u201cHe says he will esteem it an everlasting favor if any one will place the thief in his hands for just two minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n

In January 1919, an Oakland cop who had studied at art school caught up with a shipworker whose homemade license plate was not well-made enough. Cpl. Joe Wallman saw a front plate that had been repainted from an old car dealer\u2019s license, and the back one had been flipped over and repainted clumsily with a lopsided mission bell \u2014 a plate that, alas for the shipworker, had once belonged to the sheriff\u2019s department. \u201cI\u2019ve studied art, and I know perspective,\u201d Wallman declared. \u201cSo when I see a bum license plate, my artistic perception is my guide.\u201d<\/p>\n

But it was a notoriously heinous crime in the 1920s that nudged the state toward putting only six large figures \u2014 instead of seven \u2014 on the 1929 license plates.<\/p>\n

In December 1927, a 12-year-old Los Angeles girl, Marion Parker, was checked out of her school by a man posing as an employee of her father, Perry Parker. The kidnapper demanded a $1,500 ransom.<\/p>\n

Marion\u2019s father met the kidnapper \u2014 William Hickman \u2014 a couple of nights later. The kidnapper, William Hickman, in the driver\u2019s seat of a Chrysler coupe, leveled a gun at him and demanded the money. Perry Parker saw his daughter in the passenger seat, and handed over the ransom. Hickman shoved Marion out of the car as he drove off. Only then did her father realize she had been murdered \u2014 her arms and legs cut off, her body disemboweled, and her eyes wired open to make it look as if she were alive.<\/p>\n

Witnesses could read and remember only three figures on Hickman\u2019s seven-figure license plate, and the state decided to switch to six large figures \u201cto improve visibility and safety.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 1930 license plate tried something new: regional identifying letters. A through E were assigned to Sacramento and Northern California, G and H to Oakland, J and K to San Francisco, L to Fresno, M through Y to Los Angeles, and San Diego got stuck with Z. This system too was supposed to be useful for lawmen, but it didn\u2019t last long.<\/p>\n

Like Picasso, California plates had their color epochs. The gold-on-black period of the classic-car 1960s, then gold-on-azure plates into the 1980s, and the classic blue on white since then.<\/p>\n

If you see a red-on-white license plate, it\u2019s on a historical vehicle, one that\u2019s at least 25 years old and of \u201chistoric interest.\u201d The DMV sells reproductions of the iconic gold-on-black plates, and more than a dozen special interest plates to support special causes: the arts, breast cancer research, museums, agriculture, Yosemite, coastal and Lake Tahoe conservation. Californians can now order a costly digital plate that updates remotely, and in a sleek-looking white-on-black color scheme.<\/p>\n

You won\u2019t be surprised to know that the biggest, splashiest plate ever was the personalized plate \u2014 the vanity plate, debuting in 1970 for $25 extra, money destined for air pollution research. For more than a half-century, it has also helped Californians find their cars in crowded parking lots.<\/p>\n

Within the first month, the DMV got more than 3,000 orders, and it had to create a new and specialized workforce to screen plate applications for dirty words and phrases and politically or religiously offensive ones.<\/p>\n

\"Burt <\/p>\n

Burt Blum with his personalized license plate the Department of Motor Vehicles sought to recall as \u201coffensive.\u201d This photo was published in the L.A. Times on Sept. 14, 1973. <\/p>\n

(John Malmin \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

There were hundreds of requests for run-of-the-mill plates reading CHEVY or TBIRD and their variants, for SURFER and HORSES and such pursuits. Celebrities who nowadays would want to drive anonymously ordered their own. Dean Martin\u2019s classic Stutz bore the license plate DRUNKY, and early fitness guru Jack LaLanne put REDUCE on his Cadillac\u2019s bumpers.<\/p>\n

The DMV staff immersed itself in foreign language and slang dictionaries, pig Latin, and even used mirrors to figure out sneaky meanings of obscure plate applications with unusual combinations of letters, symbols and numbers. A couple of extremely vulgar ones, in Spanish and in Polish, passed DMV muster, but two inmates making license plates at Folsom recognized them for what they really were.<\/p>\n

A few drivers took the DMV to court to challenge the rejections. GAYLIB was originally turned down before a new DMV director ordered it to be issued. POT 4 ME was rejected back then, but might not be now. (I still admire whoever it was who got TORO POO approved.)<\/p>\n

The San Francisco Chronicle printed a few applications and explanations in 2014.<\/p>\n

A driver wanted \u201cRXFORXS,\u201d which he said meant \u201cprescription for success.\u201d The DMV rejection: \u201cRX [drugs] for SX [sex].\u201d<\/p>\n

One driver\u2019s explanation for TINY (HEART SYMBOL) ON,\u201d \u201cTiny is my nickname and ON is the initials of my girlfriend.\u201d The DMV was not amused. \u201cTiny hard on, sexual connotations.\u201d Rejected.<\/p>\n

In 2013 the DMV turned down DOOTERS. The applicant argued that it was his daughter\u2019s nickname, but a DMV worker unearthed it in an urban dictionary as a portmanteau of \u201cdude\u201d and \u201chooters\u201d \u2014 male breasts.<\/p>\n

\"Mr. <\/p>\n

Robert and Lynn Klees of Fullerton receive the state\u2019s first personalized license plate, AMIGO, from then-Gov. Ronald Reagan in October 1970 at the Airport Marina Hotel in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

(John Malin \/ Los Angeles Times))<\/p>\n

The same year, a school bus driver near San Diego applied for and got plates reading NOT SEE. The DMV began getting complaints about the plate, which was held in place by a plate frame with a swastika. The driver was suspended from his job and the \u201cNazi\u201d license plates canceled.<\/p>\n

In the fall of 1970, the DMV made a big production of the debut of personalized plates. The very first one read AMIGO, and Gov. Ronald Reagan presented it to Robert and Lynn Klees of Fullerton, who chose it because, said Klees, \u201cI want people to know we\u2019re proud of our Mexican heritage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dozens of people applied for a NO SMOG plate, and Reagan had to pluck the winning application out of a hat. Edgar Jacobs of La Ca\u00f1ada triumphed, and a Times photo showed him putting his new license plate on his car, but offered no specifics about what kind of car it was. \u201cAren\u2019t they beauties?\u201d he said as he screwed the plates into place.<\/p>\n

Reagan had beamed when he revealed the NO SMOG plate winner. \u201cThis is just like the Oscars,\u201d he said. \u201cMay I have the envelope, please?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Patt <\/a> <\/p>\n

Explaining L.A. With Patt Morrison<\/p>\n

Los Angeles is a complex place. In this weekly feature, Patt Morrison is explaining how it works, its history and its culture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your answer, please — and no going out to the garage and peeking: What are the colors of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":479338,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[131969,7,9,8,1059,6314,82482,1838,9115,63,107198,188021,212,188020,225,188019,72],"class_list":["post-479337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-art-school","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-dmv","tag-father","tag-kidnapper","tag-letter","tag-license-plate","tag-los-angeles-times","tag-many-car","tag-marion-parker","tag-number","tag-san-francisco-studebaker-dealer","tag-state","tag-william-hickman","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=479337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/479338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=479337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=479337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}