Legacy Plates: Black California License Plates Making Revival For Good Reason

California’s DMV has seen a spike in the popularity of Black Legacy Plates and all for good reason.

Stroll down the parking lot of any Cars and Coffee in California next week and you’re bound to come across a car outfitted with the iconic black and yellow legacy plates popular more than fifty years ago. Here’s the kicker, they’re not original plates issued between 1963-1969, they’re brand new plates that are available to anyone and they’re as popular as ever. According to Mike McPhate from the NY Times on California Today earlier last week (Mar. 21,2017) more than 230,000 legacy plates have been issued since the program’s inception to bring back these vintage plates in 2015 to December 2016. That includes quite a lot of cars not sold in the 60’s. Check out a couple of photos of what we mean by “legacy plates below.”

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About dammm time they decide to show up 4 month wait #legacyplates now she's 100 percent done #e36 #m3

A post shared by Alex Pineda (@ls2notch) on Mar 24, 2017 at 6:06pm PDT

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It's official! #legacyplates

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According to the NY Times article, the introduction of the legacy plate was first implemented to benefit the owners of classic cars that wanted to get period correct plates for their classic restorations. The 60’s definitely was the age of the muscle car with the introduction of such icons like the Ford Mustang, Chevrolet Camaro, and Pontiac Firebird being most popular. But the most popular cars sporting these plates are modern cars, not classics.

In order to gauge interest a required 7,500 pre-orders had to be met in order to get the black legacy plates to even be made in the first place. There were other optional plates made from the 50’s and 70’s as well but the legacy plates were the only ones that got the required minimum order.

Anyone with $50 and approval from the California DMV can be the proud owner of a set of Black Legacy plates as illustrated above.

So why are these plates so popular? For one, there’s the aesthetics of the color black. Anyone in fashion can tell you that black’s a popular color simply because it blends well with other colors. The same can’t really be said for California’s standard issue white plates.

Then there’s the uncommonness of it all. Some people don’t bother with what color their plates are and simply just don’t care. For $50 you can make your ride further stand out.

Also, there’s the ever popular black on black combo that car enthusiasts love. So you’ve finished your build and you’ve got a fresh jet black coat of paint and dark rims to compliment your Earl Scheibb paint job. The only thing that oftentimes ruins this black on black ensemble is the color of your license plates. At least with California’s legacy plate program you have the option of swapping in a pair of black plates to complete the look.

Currently their are a dozen plates to choose from to personalize your plates.  Did you know if you’re a UCLA alum they have college plates just for you? No other college boasts this plate.

In our opinion, the black plates look great and should make any ride standout just that much more in a parking lot lineup. However, they’ll always look right at home on a classic muscle car.