If you’ve ever registered a car at your local DMV, you’ve likely seen a checkbox on the registration document marking whether or not you’d like to register your car as a classic or historical vehicle. In many cases, checking this box does more than get you a different license plate. It could make you eligible for lower registration costs or cheaper insurance premiums.
Registering a car as a classic can come with some restrictions, too. In many states, there are rules against using vehicles registered with historical plates for daily transportation. Wisconsin is especially strict with its collector and hobbyist plates. To make sure you don’t use the plates improperly, the state requires you to have a daily driver registered in your name before it will issue you plates. If your classic is jointly owned, both drivers have to have registered daily drivers before Wisconsin will issue these plates.
Currently, Minnesota has some similar rules in place for its collector plates. According to the state’s DMV website, owners have to certify they already own a daily driver, and the car can’t be used for general transportation. While the agency uses driving to and from car shows and parades as examples of acceptable use, there aren’t any explicit rules for where and when you can drive. If this new bill is signed into law, though, vintage car owners with historical license plates could face a lot more restrictions.
The bill, titled HF (House File) 3865, would establish a host of new rules for owning, registering, and operating classic cars in Minnesota. A classic car can be registered in a few different ways through the Minnesota DMV. There are standard “collector” plates, where any car that is at least 20 years old, but newer than 1935, is eligible. Then there are “classic” plates, where only vehicles built between 1925 and 1948, and designated as a classic car by the Classic Car Club of America, are eligible. Then there are “street rod” plates, which can only be registered to vehicles built before 1949 and “designed and manufactured” to resemble a street rod. Finally, there are “pioneer” plates, which can only be registered to cars built before 1936. Oh, and there are also classic motorcycle plates, which follow similar rules to the “collector” plates, in that the bike has to be at least 20 years old to qualify.
This new bill would apply to all of the above plates, as well as military vehicles that are at least 20 years old. Here’s the paragraph you have to concern yourself with:
Subd. 5. Vehicle operation. A person may operate a vehicle registered in the collector class under subdivision 1a, 1b, 1c, 1d, or 1h, or under section 168.105, solely as a collector’s item and not for general transportation purposes. Operation as a collector’s item includes: (1) transportation for a collector vehicle club activity, exhibition, tour, parade, or similar use; and (2) operation on Saturday and Sunday from sunrise to sunset.
Alright, there are a couple of things to point out here. First, subdivisions 1a, 1b, 1c, 1d, 1h, and section 168.105 refer to all of the historical plate types I listed above. Next, according to the above text, this proposal would clarify what these cars can be used for, specifically noting driving to a collector vehicle club event, a car show, a tour, a parade, or similar.
On its surface, this feels only a tiny bit more restrictive than the current rules, which only allude to this type of restriction, but don’t explicitly state it. But it’s an important distinction to make. Whereas before, you could very easily get away from driving pretty much anywhere with your classic, this bill would assign specific use cases you’d have to adhere to.
This new restriction would only apply on weekdays, according to the bill. Going by the last line in that paragraph, drivers of classic cars will be able to drive their vehicles freely throughout Saturday and Sunday, but only during daylight hours. This is painfully vague and leaves the language up to some serious interpretation. How it’s written now, it suggests that vintage cars would only be allowed to drive on weekdays if they’re on their way to a show or other official exhibition use, and they wouldn’t be allowed to drive on the road at all whenever the sun goes down on the weekend.
This raises lots of questions, obviously. What qualifies as a sanctioned event? Could I still go on a casual cruise to meet a few friends in a parking lot on a Tuesday night? Is that considered an “exhibition?” What if I need to drive the car to my local workshop for a repair? Most shops aren’t open on the weekend, so would I have to have the car towed there? And for the love of all that is holy, why can’t I drive my classic car to the drive-in on a Saturday night? Has the writer of this bill ever heard of a sunset cruise?
Curious to know what those in the Minnesota classic car community think about this, I reached out to a couple of car clubs.
“I do think the language of the bill is problematic,” Cameron Parkhust, president of the BMW Car Club of America North Star chapter, told me over the phone. “The restrictions that are proposed, if strictly enforced, don’t make sense and are not workable.”
Parkhurst went on to say that people in his circle will often go to drive-ins and smaller meets, like Cars and Coffee events, on weekdays, and expressed worries about how people will get their cars repaired. “It’s too restrictive,” he said.
Gary Watkins, president of the Corvettes of MN club, told me most of his members wouldn’t be affected, as very few run collector plates. Nonetheless, he was far more blunt with his assessment of the bill: “It’s a stupid waste of time proposal,” he told me over email.
I’ve reached out to state representative Meg Luger-Nikolai, the bill’s sole sponsor, to get some clarity on the wording and find out why she’s trying to impose these restrictions. Neither her nor Governor Tim Walz’s office has gotten back to me. Most people online speculate that the cheaper cost associated with registering a car as a collector compared to a normal registration is the likely reason for the push.
Either way, if I were a Minnesotan with one of these plates on the back of my car, I wouldn’t be too worried. These sorts of restrictions are rarely enforced, at least going by my own experience. I street-parked an old BMW 3-Series for nearly two years and used it nearly every day on a historical registration, and was never called out for it. Parkhurst mentioned to me that he’s never seen Minnesota’s current laws on classic car driving restrictions enforced.
Plus, the bill’s chances of passing aren’t exactly clear right now. A couple of Facebook groups report that the bill was dismissed from the house discussion for the year, though I haven’t seen that reported anywhere else. Even if it passes through the legislature, the proposal also has to be signed into law by Walz, a noted vintage car enthusiast who owns a 1979 International Harvester Scout II. Whether that means the car community could win sympathy from him is unclear.
If you live in the North Star state and feel strongly enough about this, I suggest reaching out to your representative. It might feel like your call or email is going into a black hole, but it’s certainly better than nothing. You could also just re-register your car normally, with standard Minnesota plates. It’s a bit pricier, but if it means avoiding these restrictions altogether, then it might be worth the trouble.
Top graphic images: DepositPhotos.com
It (usually) lets you bypass yearly registration costs in favor of much reduced and less frequent renewals; and (in states that have them) safety/emissions inspections. Insurance is usually a fair bit cheaper too, even on non-dedidcated policies.
Not much of an issue in the past when you wouldn’t want to drive something 25 years old as your commuter car, but since now that’s increasingly just the same as any car you can buy new it’s been more easily abused.
Thank you
In MN you never have to renew if you get a classic plate, they don’t have registration tabs on them. Yearly tabs for me are around $60, which adds up, not to mention the time spent waiting at the dmv. Also the sales tax on initial purchase/registration of the vehicle is $150 flat instead of 6.875% of the price/fair market value.
To answer the second question, the state recently increased registration fees for evs/phevs so I’d assume it’s coming from a similar point, to close off loopholes.
Why wait around at the DVS office, when you can just go online instead? I noticed on my tab renewal this year that there’s a $1 surcharge to get them at a local office, vs a small fee to renew online, which worked out to an extra dollar over the cost of going to the office. I feel my time was worth the extra dollar.
My local DMV is next to the library so if I’m in the building regardless, I’ll just head over there but I’ll probably try online renewal this year.
Overview of Collector Plates in WisconsinCollector license plates in Wisconsin are designed for motor vehicles that meet specific criteria. These plates allow vehicle owners to register their classic or collectible cars while enjoying certain benefits.
Eligibility CriteriaVehicle Requirements
Owner Requirements
Registration FeesThe registration fees for collector plates vary based on the type of vehicle. Below is a summary of the fees:
Vehicle TypeFirst Collector Vehicle FeeSubsequent Vehicle FeeAutomobile$220$170Truck (up to 6,000 lbs)$250$200Motor home (up to 5,000 lbs)$147$97Motorcycle$73$23Former Military Vehicle$250$200
Additional InformationCollector plates are permanent and do not require annual renewal, making them a convenient option for enthusiasts. If the vehicle has been modified, it may still qualify for hobbyist plates, which have different regulations.
So don’t get collector car plates if you’re going to use it as a daily; which is what this is targeting even if overtuned.
Yes, but this isn’t the 60s where everyone works a 9-5 job with the weekends off. What if I work on Sat and Sun dayshift and have Tues and Wed off, I can’t drive my classic car?
That doesn’t sound like you’re using it as a daily to me in this instance; so no.
Much as this bill is DOA, the sunset to sunrise restriction does have some potential logic behind it. Older cars lighting systems are far dimmer and thus less visible (as well as not having a CHMSL) than modern cars. I’ve been unpleasantly surprised at the difficulty in picking out an older car against a background of modern LED taillights.
You can get bright replaceable Halogen or LED headlights that drop right into the mounting buckets. Swap them for sealed beams for shows.
How do you take your old car to the only open on weekdays mechanic?
There are some collectors that whatever is necessary to become dealers, then just use a couple plates for the entire collection. Being a used cars only “Wholesale dealer” is relatively easy, and I think some places if you make 5 or more transactions per year you are required to be a wholesale dealer. Dealer plates are sort of magical.
You’re fallen for the republican propaganda- I live in Minnesota and this bill has only one author, no senate companion, and no hearing scheduled. It’s going nowhere and it’s DOA!
Correct. HF3865 filed by Rep Meg Luger-Nikolai, who has only been in office since a January 2026 special election. She’s also someone who said during a committee hearing that she wants to “quintuple the rates of registration fees” for vehicles. H3865 was filed March 2, 2026 and sent to the relevant house committee – a committee Luger-Nikolai is a member of – where no further action taken. HF3865 will die at the end of the 2026 legislative session in May.
This pearl clutching “they’re taking my car away from me!” is a bit too much. Stupid bills are filed every day in State legislatures (and Congress) and go nowhere. HF3865 is going the same place – the trash.
There seems to be a lot of that here in the comments.
This sure has brought a whole bunch of RWNJ’s out of the woodwork.
Yep. Single sponsor, very specific and random, answer to a question nobody was asking, it all adds up to never getting out of committee. And of course the governor isn’t going to have a comment about every random garbage bill with no chance of getting to his desk.
Alternate take – this would be much like handsfree or texting-while-driving laws. Most officers wont be bothered to enforce it unless they needed some sort of pretext for a “conversation”.
Just occasionally the UK makes sense;
Historic (classic) vehicles: MOT and vehicle taxContents
EligibilityThe date your vehicle was built or first registered affects whether you need to:
Vehicles that do not need an MOTYou do not need to get an MOT if:
If you’re not sure if there have been any substantial changes you can:
Vehicles exempt from vehicle taxIf your vehicle was built before 1 January 1986, you can stop paying vehicle tax from 1 April 2026.
If you do not know when your vehicle was built, but it was registered before 8 January 1986, you do not need to pay vehicle tax from 1 April 2026.
What you have to doYou must apply for a vehicle tax exemption to stop paying vehicle tax. This is sometimes called putting a vehicle into the ‘historic tax class’.
You do not have to apply to stop getting an MOT for your vehicle each year. However, you must still keep it in a roadworthy condition.
You can be fined up to £2,500 and get 3 penalty points for using a vehicle in a dangerous condition.
NextHistoric vehicle tax exemption
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We have “Antique” plates in Virginia, but I only ever see them on clapped out 80’s cars because they won’t pass a safety inspection.
So Minnesota has solved absolutely every other problem that should be taking up lawmakers’ time instead of this nonsense about a few old cars? That’s nice. Good for them.
Just like all the red cities around the state wasting time passing ordinances to fly the old flag.
I love that in Michigan they have pretty much no restrictions on use of historic plated vehicles during the summer months. More difficult has been insurance, I can’t seem to get classic car insurance on my C10 Squarebody. They all seem to tell me they can’t help me after I tell them I tow with it.
Maybe dont mention you tow with it. Don’t ask don’t tell. Unless the policy specifically says no towing you should be good.
Wisconsin has it WAAY better. Basically drive whenever you want except for January.
I do despise that Michigan otherwise only lets you drive when you’re going to or from a show. That’s why my “classic” is a regular plate, because it’s still a 3rd car in most respects, rather than a showpiece.
Anyone know if Tim Waltz uses collector plates on his Scout?
Last I saw it no, but that was during the presidential campaign.
The only real reason to use classic/antique plates instead of regular plates is to avoid inspection, but Minnesota doesn’t have inspection.
Its cheaper to register too. Not by alot but every little bit helps.
Insurance is vastly cheaper,
Collector plates in MN are a one time cost. No annual registration fee so the savings can really add up over time.
I’m much more concerned about people driving their unregistered trucks down the road on $15-for-forever “Farm Use” plates.
Are those usually insured? I don’t see those here but about 3% of vehicles around here display no licence or an expired permit. You just know those people aren’t insured.
Unfortunately one of them hit my MIL’s car and then ran off. Had to cover all the repairs ourselves.
“hey be cool about this” – JT
In New York you have to have a farm or at least property that could conceivably be a form. If you have property means you have assets that you need to protect and unless you’re crazy, you’ll get insurance.
So to answer the question, if a vehicle legitimately has farm plates on it than it is most likely insured, unless of course, somebody stole some farm plates off of an abandoned truck in a field. You also have to be traveling between farming properties , or to a farm business etc.
A friend has family with farm land on eastern Long Island and near Buffalo, so he’s pretty much covered any where in NewYork State.
A guy I don’t know has a Ferguson tractor he drives around Brooklyn with farm plates. I don’t know what the story is but I see him in Park Slope every so often.
Standard Antique plates offer no real benefits in Massachusetts. They’re more expensive than PAN plates ($50/year instead of $60 for two years), you still need an inspection sticker, and they have the movement restrictions. Passenger Cars 15 years old and older are exempt from emissions testing regardless of plate. Antiques are basically a special vanity that say “this car isn’t a daily.”
BUT, if you own a car older than 1979, you can get a Year of Manufacture plate as an antique registration. This lets you mount an appropriate vintage plate to a vintage car, assuming you find one.
Realistically speaking the costs of registering an old car in Mass isn’t much. $60 / two years for PAN plates, $35/year for a sticker, and the yearly excise tax will be minimal (a car that was valued at, say, $50K in 1989 like a Porsche would have a $125 excise tax. More affordable/normal cars would be half that or less).
Legislators gonna legislate. That’s what they do. So the law gets more complex each session with the need for more attorneys and bureaucrats to administer and interpret it.
Requiring the registration of a “daily driver” in order to obtain collector plates is supremely stupid.
It’s perhaps unlikely, but it’s not hard to imagine getting around without a car for daily purposes, and keeping one collector car for fun.
Particularly when one lives in a city which has a well developed mass transit system.
New York is the only city in the US with usable public transit where you don’t need a car.
That’s not exactly true, lots of people in Washington and Philadelphia don’t have cars. Hell, I used to work in the suburbs of Philadelphia, and there’s some small towns closish to the border where I ran into folks who didn’t have licenses or cars, because they walked around in town and took SEPTA when they needed something further away. And didn’t have convenient parking at home
I wouldn’t say so. I’d prefer a car in most cases but that’s because I like driving and would do it recreationally.
There are plenty of American cities where you don’t need to drive if you don’t want to.
San Francisco Bay Area is livable without a car, and my son lived in Chicago for about three years without a car. There are some places that are hard to get to in all of them without a car, but it’s possible.
Boston is also a delightful city to be in without a car.
I got Hagerty insurance for a car kept in California but with NY plates when I lived in NYC without a car and visited California for about 3 weeks a year total.
Getting a trash car with bare liability only insurance is pretty cheap too.
I’d say the ratio of people who has a collector car that qualifies for these plates and no other car to the number of people who would do this for cheaper taxes and insurance is about 1:100.
The workaround is to just register your car on a normal plate, that’s what I do with all of mine, because I don’t like having any restrictions whatsoever on what/where/how I drive, and not having to go through a safety inspection every two years isn’t a big enough “perk” for me to put up with that, especially given how ludicrously basic our safety inspections are
Man, if this ain’t some gubmint horseshit. Whenever literally any new law – particularly law that regulates or even criminalizes something – is proposed, I put it to a very simple litmus test: What is the very worst possible, but likely outcome if nothing is done at all? The worst possible likely outcome here is that life goes on the same way it has since the invention of the automobile, and no one would notice. That’s how I know that a law is not needed. It’s the same reason I get frustrated at certain medications being prescription only – I’m pretty sure that I could withstand the very worst possible overdose on, for instance, butt cream and live to tell the tale. It’s not exactly a drug of abuse, and I’m a grown man. I think I can handle the responsibility. A $40 copay and missing half a day of work is ridiculous when a 90-second conversation with the pharmacist would be sufficient.
Besides, I would dare to say that the great state of Minnesota has much bigger fish to fry lately than whether Grandpa can drive his 1967 Galaxie to Sonic when he damn well pleases. It’s not precisely like they’ve solved all of their other major problems, and can now turn their attention to Grandpa’s ride to Sonic.
My litmus test for laws is, is it worth the government killing someone over whatever behavior the law restricts. The only way to enforce laws is by force or the threat thereof.
When Mao said that political power comes from the barrel of a gun, he wasn’t talking only about the totalitarian kind, but every last shred of it, even in the freest democracies on earth.
When you get lippy and say to the government – ANY government – “Oh, yeah? Well, whaddya gonna do about it?”, the final answer is “PEWPEWPEW.”
I don’t have a problem with people driving and enjoying older cars. That’s all good. But registering your beat up commuter as a “historic” vehicle just to take advantage of cheaper registration is not what the plates are meant for. I think this particular bill is too restrictive as written, but I understand the motivation.
Expecting everyone to (1) correctly (and uniformly? hah!) interpret intent of all laws and (2) follow both intent and explicit requirements is ridiculous. If the law is imprecise, wrong, or otherwise ineffective, fix it or abolish it. If someone isn’t breaking the law, stay outta their way.
“If the law is imprecise, wrong, or otherwise ineffective, fix it or abolish it.”
It seems like this is what the bill attempts to do.
Tennessee did away for emissions testing a few years ago, that was the only real reason to get an antique plate. We tested all the way back to 1975 or 76. I think my tags last time was $50 or so.
Still see the damn Montana plate scam all around here though. The Kia minivan in front of me at the gas pump today had a Montana plate. I know 7% is steep but on a $45,000 van its about $3000. Suck it up and pay it, we have no state income tax here and property taxes are silly cheap if you dont live in Nashville
Washington state just changed their law that requires you to have a regularly licensed vehicle besides your historic plated vehicle (one time fee). It’s just trying to close the loophole of someone with a 30+ year old car from using it as a daily driver to avoid licensing fees. Some of the states are pretty restrictive, you do need to be able to go out and drive the vehicle just to keep it operational.
As cars get older the cost of plates goes down anyway. I never saw the value of antique plates to begin with. To quote Harry Vanderspeigle, “This is some bullshit!”
That used to be true, but some places like Colorado, add so many fees to the registration now that it still costs hundreds to register a car that’s older. The tax part is only a small portion of the bill.
Yeah it really depends on the state for me in Indiana only reason for my antique plates on my Firebird is so I can get classic car insurance but for my dad in Illinois his registration fees on his 57 Bel Air and 77 Firebird are like 50 bucks each for 5 years on classic plates vs mine here where it is like 50-60 a year.
Woof! I wasn’t thinking of other states. Point taken.
In most states I’ve lived age isn’t a factor in the cost of plates and registration.
The bill has one sponsor. I don’t live in MN, but if I did, and especially if I lived in her district (or even if I were an intrepid automotive journalist seeking comment for a story), I think an email to ask about the rationale couldn’t hurt. I can’t fathom what it’d be, but I’d be interested to understand the motivation.
Someone with a 1992 Camry on historic plates broke into her kitchen and peed in her Cheerios?
Guarantee you they hate cars and are some far-lefty that can’t fathom why anyone would possibly enjoy them.
Once again, the Left in this country does more harm than good to their own causes.
Please just keep you hate off here please there are politically left car fans.
I am left of center on the vast majority of issues, but some of the extreme lefties ruin everything for everyone. All you have to do is see some of the posts on other sites to see just how wacko these extremes are. Banning all cars. Limiting top speeds to like 25 MPH. And just in general stupid ideas that only make things worse for everyone.
As is the case with the extreme right wing stuff on the internet also making it worse for everyone.
If you go far enough left, you end up back on the right.
I will agree with you though, I’m a progressive redneck (like the old school, pro union, anti-authority type) and the fringe left has caused as much damage to progressive and leftist causes as the far right has by trying to move the needle to ‘Corporate Christo-Fascism’ as much as humanly possible.
Some of these far left urbanist ’15 minute city’ types absolutely HATE cars and want to do as much as possible to make owning them overly expensive and miserable. These types can lick an unwiped part of my posterior.
100% agree. I’ll always have gasoline running through my veins even if I can understand that the future is EV for most commutes. Just sometimes, you aren’t commuting and you don’t give a flying fuck how inefficient your vehicle is when you see some perfect curvy mountain road. These far left folks don’t just want to take the thrill of an ICE away from us, they want to neuter you. Or at least that’s what it seems like.
Rational is pretty clear. People are abusing classic car state us daily drive an old car. This bill seems overly complicated but I don’t blame states for trying to crack down now that cars don’t wear out in 25 years.
Or that (before tariffs at least) the import market had gotten so strong in the past decade.
When a lot of Historical plate registration rules were written it was to allow people to go to car shows in their numbers-matching BaraMaroStang on sunny days in June at reduced registration rates and fewer/no inspection requirements.
In 2026 a car you can get historic plates for can be a piece of shit Chevy Lumina that was registered as a classic to avoid being yanked off the road or paying real registration costs because it’s being driven every day on 5 cylinders and 2 brakes and has been since the Obama Administration. That this specific legislation is overzealous doesn’t make what it’s targeting any less a problem.
I get that part. I live in TN and have a 1997 F-150 that I pondered getting antique plates for, mostly as a goof, but once I learned of the driving restrictions (similar to what this rule proposes, and in the reddest of red states, no less), I took a pass.
“What a stupid waste of time” pretty much sums it up. Requirement that you have a modern insured cars as a daily pretty much covers all concerns in my opinion.
Most states’ Collector/Antique license plate laws are similarly ridiculous. Most of these laws were written in an era when it was highly improbable that a person would want/be able to daily drive a 25 year old car. In 2026, it is perfectly reasonable to daily a 2001 Civic or Silverado, and many people abuse collector registrations, because it’s legal.
Nevada changed their law a couple years ago to try to stem the abuse. Lawmakers’ ridiculous reaction was to place the decision of whether or not a car was a “classic” on friggin’ insurance companies. You can’t get a “classic” plate unless Hagerty (or any other insurance company) will write you a collectible car policy. I’m sure that’s not at all ripe for abuse.
Seriously. Hagerty would write me a classic policy for my 2010 Challenger, but not my 2008 RX-8. This despite the fact that the Challenger is my daily driver and my RX-8 is my weekend toy.
You do see a lot of contractors and landscapers in Maryland running around in 1990s and early 2000s pickups with collector plates, I don’t care, personally, but I can certainly understand why state officials might
Hagerty wouldn’t touch my 21yo car, maybe I should have tried a higher value. I picked a 5k & 10k policy.
Florida does 30 years. I have one on a 94 Civic.