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 need look no further than my mother-in-law: BAA BAA, as she fancies herself the black sheep of the family. The perfect plate for a walking, talking, and – much to the chagrin of anyone unfortunate enough to share the road with her – driving victim complex.
On the “accidental vanity” side of things, I will never not be tickled by the contrast between my Spark – arguably the least threatening car in existence – and the WMD currently on my license plate.
I did see in front of me a couple months ago – Lotus Esprit in black – 3MANA.
I have seen pictures of similar plates in a couple other states.
For those unfamiliar with Magic the Gathering card game, Black Lotus is a card that you can tap for 3 mana.
My personal favorites are non-vanity plates that look like vanity plates. I know a guy who got a randomly generated MRS 9969 recently, which, lol.
I once saw DKHLMT on a black PT Cruiser convertible. There was also a sticker on the boot that announced: Spaceballs: The Car!
I always take pics of the weird ones:
“INNY OR” plate on an Audi SUV.
ZANAX on a black Lexus SUV
SPITE in a white Honda Accord
There are so many, but this one comes to mind:
https://onmilwaukee.com/articles/gobearslicenseplate#omclbx-img-gobearslicenseplate
That’s either very brave or very foolhardy.
In Texas, there’s a special plate for Purple Heart recipients. I saw one once with BIN HIT. I don’t think I can ever top that.
8 years ago I tried to put 2SLOBRO on my Miata, but while it was available, the California DMV rejected it a few weeks later with a letter proclaiming that it doesn’t allow plates that are “aggressive, offensive, or derogatory” or something like that. Seriously California?
Oh, and I saw a Camaro SS 3 months ago with the plate RPMS 2HI
I tried to get GREP4IT for my car because I’m a UNIX guy, but the CA DMV rejected it because it apparently contained a gang reference.
Probably the best one I saw was on an older Winnebago that was SHTR FUL.
Also spotted a Family Truckster replica at Daytona Bike Week years ago and it’s plate on the back (it had the faithful to the movie Lou Dobbs dealer plate on the front) was RIPEDNA. It had a bunch of 70s era luggage, as well as the “corpse” wrapped in a blanket on the roof.
1972 VW Beetle in the garage of an office building housing several tech companies:
FEATURE
(the geeks among us will get this)
I saw that one on the Bay Bridge in San Francisco. No doubt every state had one.
Personal license plates like these generally follow a rule similar to Betteridge’s Law of Headlines. The answer is almost always “no”! The driver is rarely DEDSXY, HOTNESS, or SOORICH. The car is rarely FASTRNU, XPNSIV, or USOSLO.
I currently have WHT WHNE on my 03 Park Ave Ultra (it has a fenderwell intake and a smaller pulley so it whines a fair bit. I also have LQWUT on my Lumina Z34, which is a reference to the dreaded X motor dubbed LQ1.
Just after college I had a six speed 02 WS6 with LUVSTIK on the plate, not sure how that got cleared but it did. In high school I built an 85 Trans Am and the engine my brother gave me had a gear drive, so RED WHNE was put on that car, and later on my red 96 SSEi.
And another fond memory, my maternal grandmother always had SOGRAM 1 on a personalized plate, because any of the grandkids were always asking, so Gram, where are we going today?
I have plans to get others on the rest of the cars once we’ve moved home base to a cheaper state.
I just remembered another, when I detailed cars in high school there was a customer who had a brand new Chrysler 300C, and he had applied for vanity plates that would read MY BENZ to nod at the fact that the car shares some MB components/designs, but when IL issued him the plates they read MY BEN. I’m not sure he ever did have it corrected.
https://opposite-lock.com/topic/124830/stickers-and-plates
EUGHX2 on an AMG GLE53. iykyk
There was a group of kids in my high school who all had different variations of 1’s and I’s or 0’s and O’s (00O0OO0 for example) which made it nearly impossible to read (report) correctly.
My SIL has a 3-series with the M-Sport package and her plate is M3JKLOL
For one year, I drove our van with a plate that read ZOMBES. It was an organ donor plate, so had the “Donate Life” emblem on it as well.
Couple of memorable ones here recently. I’d send photos but I have no idea how to do that in the comments.
There’s a Tesla Model X with “UGHKIDS” as a plate that my friend sees at school pickups for his own kids.
And then there’s a Honda Civic that I saw recently with “93WUTNG.” I assume that’s a Wu Tang fan but I’m wrong about a lot of things.
The worst? “IMTXTING”
I bet this person swims and doesn’t realize there could be other meanings: “ALL WET”
Oh, an “AGGRESSIVE” New Yorker. Shocker.
And I always loved this guy. He really wanted you to know he had a McLaren. Not only does it say McLaren on the car, but he has a license plate frame that says McLaren….and his plate? MCLREN.
That could only be better if he had a bumper sticker that said “my other car is a McLaren”.
~15 years ago, I used to see DDTDXDT on a Corvette on the Tri State in Chicago on a regular basis.
It took me a moment to get it, but it amuses me still.
It stands for the second derivative of x with respect to time, or acceleration for the non-engineers.
Pardon my naivete, but can you enlighten me as to what this means?
It’s a calculus representation of acceleration.
d(f)/dt means the derivative of something with respect to time. Derivative can be thought of as how much something changes when another variable changes. You can think in discrete terms like delta (or change) in the function divided by the change in time.
Therefore, dx/dt is the change in x (position) divided by the change in time or velocity (speed). Adding the additional d/dt takes a second derivative, or dv/dt, or the change in velocity divided by the change in time. This is acceleration.
This is not quite the technically correct explanation, but gets the general idea.
TLDR: ddtdxdt means d/dt(dx/dt) which is a way of representing acceleration
I am the owner of RALLY in Kentucky
H823PUTT. I figured he was bragging about only 3 putting most holes.
Years ago I knew a guy with M0V IML8
A few years back I tried 8675309, but it was unavailable.
Of course it was. When Jenny was issued those plates, she was firmly instructed never to change her number.
I see what you did there….
1. BORT (for the Simpsons fans)
2. LIVIN on some 70s muscle car (for the Dazed and Confused fans); and
3. My all time favorite, which technically wasn’t vanity since it was randomly issued by Florida DMV, A55 RGY with a nice big orange in the middle. https://completeoutrage.wordpress.com/tag/a55-rgy/
I’m the owner of Utah BORT plates!
That’s freaking awesome!!! I’m in Chicago, and saw an Illinois “BORT” plateat my gym a few months ago. I was probably way more excited than I should have been.
I once was handed a non-vanity plate with the letters BDSM and some random number. I handed it back the clerk and refused to take it. It was an older lady and she was clueless as why I did not want that plate and I was not going to explain it to her.
Who knew Fart McSprinkles was so particular
I remember Car & Driver once writing about a custom plate they saw that was:
FAA QUE
(read it aloud)