I have never had or wanted a vanity plate, but I certainly enjoy seeing the creative letter and digit choices others have made in the name of having fun, flexing, or otherwise sending a message via their federally mandated stamped sheetmetal.
Well, I enjoy some of them. The others, I react to, as I am just as frequently annoyed by vanity plates as I am entertained by them. Not deeply annoyed, mind you, there are much more important concerns in life. But I will roll my eyes, and perhaps exhale sharply with a dismissive pfffft.
In particular, I’m not a fan of smug plates on electric vehicles – by which I mean Teslas. It’s almost always Teslas. It was once a thing for Priuses (which are hybrids, I know), but I can’t recall the last time I saw a Prius suggesting its driver was somehow better than me via license plate. And to be fair, it seems the Tesla owners around my neck of north-Dallas suburbia have chilled out with LOL GAS, NO OIL, LUV ERTH, and the like. I’m sure they’re still out there, but with every third vehicle being a white Model Y where I am, most of the Tesla plates I see are standard luck-of-the-draw affairs. It’s just a regular car, after all.
Vanity plates on enthusiast cars run hot and cold for me, depending entirely on the message of course. A hot car with a HOT CAR plate is a hat on a hat. But if you’re rolling out in a pricey performance machine and your plate is BROKE or NO401K, respect. And while a chuckle was likely not the intention, I do get a one whenever a plate goes harder than the car itself deserves, for ex:
My favorite vanity plates are the thinkers, the ones that take a sec to register but then reward you with the thrill of getting it. Such as:
Judging by those fender flares, I’m betting there’s an angry-eyes grille up front for eff’s sake.
it’s a McConaughey thing
byu/Austin_Native_2 inLICENSEPLATES
McConaug-HEY, I get it! And it’s a Texas plate, of course. That’s quality license-plate humor.
Your turn: What Are The Best And Worst Vanity Plates You’ve Encountered? See you in the comments!
I had POPUPZ on my ’90 Miata, all my other NA owning friends were pissed they hadn’t checked if it was available, and everyone who asked what it meant gave me an excuse to hit the headlight pop button
I have NBSC, pretty straightforward. I was surprised that there was not another NB Miata Supercharged with that license plate lol
There’s a supercharged lowered fifth gen Camaro around here with a ST0CK license plate on it.
I parked next to a Wrangler once with the license plate 0IIIIIII0.
A woman I worked with in the 90s got NAZTGRL (Nasty Girl). But then she put a frame around the license plate that sort of obscured the top of the T, so if you didn’t look carefully it read as NAZIGRL
I wonder if she drives a Tesla now…
I have 25 R6T04…those of a certain age will get it.
Is it an Illinois plate?
I’m in NC… and I’m just a long-time fan.
That’s from that famous song….While My Guitar Gently Weeps! 🙂
Lsd 25 and still awake at six minutes to 4 yes that was a thing with some acid I late 1960’s
CA plates are one number, three letters, three numbers and I once saw the “accidental vanity”:
5EXW001
And presumably there’s nine other people woo-ing about intercourse as well.
Well, for now at least. The state will run out of that sequence soon and plans to flip the sequence backwards, just like they did when they ran out of commercial truck plate numbers.
In Illinois, when you get a specialty plate, the two-letter code for that plate is printed vertically on the right side. Thus, if it’s a Blackhawks plate it says “BH” and if its a White Sox plate it says “WS” (there are many others but those are the two codes I remember most easily off the top of my head).
It’s important to note that these letters are officially part of the registered plate number. Therefore if you have 1234 on a Blackhawks plate, your official plate number is actually 1234BH.
I can’t remember what the particular specialty plate was for, but the two-letter code for it was SS. A couple years one of these plates was making the rounds of the local spotters group, it was a vanity plate reading “DUMBA”.
Last I heard, the secretary of state finally figured it out and rescinded it.
When he first started in the NHL, defenseman Matt Dumba of the MN Wild actually wore #55, and used #DUMBA55 as his Twitter account. Intentionally, AFAIK.
that’s spectacular
I had 92X-WRX on my Saabarus back in the day.
It looked kinda funny on the 2000 Impreza RS that I had in between. . .
I still daily drive an ’06 92x Aero. I’ve considered repeatedly looking to see if I can get “SAABARU”, but I find I’m both too lazy and too cheap.
It was taken in PA in 2006 when I bought my first one off the lot. Congrats on finding an 06 Aero, those things were unicorns with the 2.5L
Thanks. The ’06 Turbo was very much something I had been hunting. I drove a 2005 NA for years before finding this one. I’ve owned a bunch of Subaru’s but the 92x is the best looking Impreza in my opinion.
A guy near me has a modded 2010-ish GTI with “SLO GTI” which is pretty fun, but nobody around me beats the yellow/black Smart with “PIKACHU.” Not even the yellow/black Camaro with BMBLBEE. Dead serious.
Vanity tags aren’t huge here, it’s much more common to see one of our 150+ special interest tags. Some of them have a letter on the left side, which is part of the logo of the entity or school. So the occasional times I see a Univ of Alabama tag and it’s “free A” on the left side, followed by “UBURN” or “WFUL” it really makes me appreciate it.
3JOH22A
Look in mirror
3MTA3
The Virginia “EAT THE Children First” specialty plate is the best of all time.
Florida’s famous “A55 RGY” was pretty solid, made good use of that free “O” on the middle with the orange.
FL used to have a manatee tag that was pretty vague, just a big manatee behind the letters. I once saw POTATO on it and it was glorious.
Im partial to ANASLEX
In California: The best I’ve ever seen was LYSDXIA (dyslexia)
The worst is a tie for basically any painfully obvious plate…for example, BLKTSLA on (you guessed it) a black Tesla. Like, really?
Weirdest was probably DOGLUBR (dog lover? dog luber? yikes!).
Someone local to me has a Model S with the plate “TSLA S” and I cringe heavily every time I see it. At least the “LOL GAS” plates are trying to have a shred of creativity.
A woman at work had a “BMWLOL” on her Caddy that amused me.
Same kinda idea, but I think its funny. My buddy has a big ugly diesel truck with license plate “TOW RIG” and his RV camper trailer license plate says “TRAILER”
I had COWB3LL for a brief time.
My favorite was a Maine plate, “PISSOFF”.
Other memorable ones in RI:
“KBOOM” on a very nice Pinto wagon survivor
“ABOMB” on a plain white Transit panel van
My sister came up with FREEC&Y for their van
Back in highschool, friend’s dad had a corvette with the license plate GO FO
Honorable mentions I’ve seen on FBM were a base e46 sedan with “ANME TDY” and a second gen Ranger with “FEMBYZ”. I don’t think the VA DMV screens custom plates very thoroughly.
Years ago I remember seeing a Lamborghini or Ferrari (I can’t remember which, but it was yellow) with ‘JOE DRT’ plates.
I also remember sitting behind a Mercedes once with ‘LOL’ plates, dunno what they’re laughing at though.
Personally, on my AWD DSM with the big turbo I had ‘LAGG’ plates.
Because I’m a nerd, my favorite was ASCII 27.
If you know, you know what kind of car it was.
I’m guessing a small Ford SUV?
That’s a valid checksum, my friend.
You could do something similar with an ALTima.
I had a vanity plate years ago on my mustang.
The forum had 3 options to try to get. I tried STANG and HORSE, but both of those were apparently taken. I didn’t really have a 3rd choice i wanted, so i put the letters IDNTKNW. Guess which one i got?
The icing on the cake was being a teenager i had a lead foot.
One of the multiple times i got stopped for speeding, the officer walked up to my car and made the statement, “I would ask you how fast you were going, but according to your license plate you clearly don’t know.
Easy best I’ve seen, a black 2014ish Chrysler Town And Country with “FBI VAN”
Also the name of my WiFi network years ago!
It’s not the best, but it’s in the running, at least sentimentally for me. One year (and for only one year, I promised myself from the start), I had a plate for myself of a family nickname. My first name being Ben, as soon as my brother announced his wife was pregnant with their first, my cousin looked right at me and shouted:
RICE MAN
He and I still have the defunct plates hanging in my garage. 🙂
Go Owls!
Funniest one I recall is DKCHKLT. Driven by a petite woman. I’m pretty sure she mean “Dark Chocolate” but I instantly read it as Dick Chicklet.
A few years back I saw a little old lady driving a 2006ish Corolla with several Democrat bumper stickers and the license plate “PRAY4D”. The context clues told me the truth, but the obvious interpretation was certainly lost on that woman.
I also read that as “Dick Chicklet” lol
I remember seeing one that said PKLBLR. Before it was explained to me that pickleball was a thing, I’d swear it was supposed to be Pickle Blower.
I am rather fond of my own. I own a yellow Pontiac GTO, my plate is OH YE4H because of the song by Yello. Custom frame “doo bow bow” above and “chick chicka chick-ah” below.
I was on the way to a gig and I pulled up behind a bubble-era Ford Taurus wagon with “CLINTT” on the license plate. My guitarist and I immediately started laughing our asses off like immature idiots and I’m snapping pictures like crazy. The guys in the Taurus notice and start laughing with us.
All I can say is that I am proud that my guitarist and I, two men, were able to successfully find and get a reaction out of the CLINTT Taurus.
Years ago, a woman co-worker went on a really terrible date, just to get out of the date’s car at the end, and find to her horror that she’d been driven around all night in a car with the plate IMEZRU.