There are some license plates that are indelible in my mind.
5G8366: My first motorcycle, which I got when I was twelve.
1M7749: My second motorcycle, at 16.
1M7750: Dad’s matching motorcycle.
TAA 951: My first car, a 1966 MGB
Plus a few other of cars, and my California driver’s license number.
Others I’ve seen:
AU GHOTI: ‘Goldfish’
PLARUDE: Seen on a Honda Prelude.
LENTAJA: (lentäjä, ‘pilot’) My mother’s husband emigrated from Finland, and he was a pilot. He had this on his car.
Just yesterday I saw
TAXMAN
DUMBLDOR
Mine until recently: JMNFOUS. It was meant as “je m’en fous”, roughly French for “I don’t give a fuck”. I didn’t renew it when I got my new truck because I was really tight for cash. Just the other week I went to get it and someone else had snagged it! Now I think I’ll have to go with JMNFCHE.
Seen in Virginia Beach - XQZMWAH
And a friend who owned a green VW Bug had the plate, KERMIE
This one confused me at first - SSECNIRP
Virginia has the most vanity plates in the US. I saw many clever ones when I lived there - I wish I could recall more of them.
That reminds me of a guy I used to work with back in the ‘80s. His plate was LKN4TNA. He said it was ‘Lookin’ for T & A’, but got it past DMV by telling them it meant ‘Looking for Tina’.
I met a guy who said he wanted MENMYRT on his ('60s? '70s?) R/T. There was a commercial in the '70s, several years earlier, for RC Cola whose jingle went ‘Me and my RC! Me and my RC!’ But the guy said people wouldn’t get it, and think it was ‘Men mert’.
I got mine past the DMV by saying it was “Jammin’ for the U.S.” I think in California they only know to check for Spanish obscenities.
not my plate number in the pic (don’t remember it), but I miss my Texas Sesquicentennial plate on my old Camaro
YOURN in New Hampshire.
I met the owner. He was a urologist.
That amazes me! I don’t know any of my tag numbers, current or past.
BIKE - It’s on my current car.
CYCLING - It was on my minivan. When all the kids were gone, we no longer needed the minivan and let it go. I almost switched CYCLING over to my current car, but it was too much of a hassle and cost.
I liked this one - EATTHE - but it was revoked by the Virginia DMV.
I saw one recently (forget where it was from) saying IMNSANE.
Well, I didn’t see this one in person, but someone had a thread featuring it a while back
Just last week I saw “24601” here in Kansas. (Jean Valjean’s number from Les Mis.)
In California, quite some time ago, I saw “NGENTOT”. The word, pronounced “NYEN TOT”, is the Indonesian word for “fuck”.
There used to be a green Citroën 2CV driving around here with KERMIT on it. Another 2CV I occasionally saw had FORSALE on it’s rego plate.
The local drugstore’s delivery vehicle is a late-model VW Beetle. Its plate? DRUGBUG.
The older you get, the shorter your memory for recent plates. But you still remember the old ones. 628-907, my dad’s car in 1945 (I was 6 years old). Followed by 4-31414, and then D10-185. A good license plate buff will be able to sleuth out, from that, what state it was.
Whilst driving through Chicago I saw one that said Lvnitup. Like “Livin’ it up”. Seemed fun and it always stuck with me.
I used to have Kikkit on mine because of the Beastie Boys, but now I just have numbers and stuff. I’ll get a new plate in about a year or so, I’ll switch to something fun methinks
I was behind a BMW with the plate IMBMING. I suppose he meant I’m Beaming but it looked to me like he was shitting himself.
The 59 Edsel wagon I drove for what time during my youth I drove was ARU-612. My bike tag during those years and more was B2764
(I spent a lot of time in motels and had to give the plate number, so its burned in my brain)
Now everything has vanity plates
DRK RD (Dark Ride) for the Sportie
AM1SH (Amish Number One) for Bessie the Road Kow
WVIEW PK (West View Park) on the Subaru. That one we inherited from my late BIL
My favorite all-time plate is Martina Navratilova’s (x-CZECH)
