Some garages here advertise their cars as being a black plate car. As far as my knowledge goes, it just means that it has been an original Californian car. Of course this at least decreases the change on rust. Now I have 2 (maybe dumb) question. Does the "black plate" thing have more implications? And second, does it really make such difference, or should I say, does it give such a high garantee on a rust free car? (Even to justify a higher price)
California license plates used to be black, with yellow numbers. "Black plate" is just another way of saying the car has always lived in California, and is less likely to be rusty. Jalopnik.com has a series called Down on the Street, which features all kind of old cars still in use, mostly in Alameda, CA.
Yeah, and up to the mid 50's I think, they were a yellow background with black letters - the reverse. California changed to a blue background in the late 60's, then changed again to a white/silver reflective background in the late 90's.
A "black plate" car is a car that was registered in California anytime between June 1962 and January 1970, as this was the time the yellow character/black background tags were used. If the registration is current, that means the car has lived its whole life (at least from that time on) to the present. It's a big deal to document a California car in that manner. You will NOT find a black/yellow Cali tag on any car registered there, starting after around Jan 1970. That's when the blue/yellow tags came out. Blue background/yellow character tags began to be issued in early 1970. If the car is a 1970 model, it could have either style, depending on the original registration date. A 1971 and up will have a blue/yellow tag on it. The white background/blue letter started in the early '80s. A yellow background/black character tag was used from the early '50s to June 1962. These can be used for YOM registrations, and I understand the black/yellow tags are now allowed for YOM regs for 1962 - 1965 cars. The black/yellow tag does NOT guarantee a rust-free car (cars DO rust there!), but it pretty much guarantees an early provenance, in terms of origin and when the car was registered in California.
On the show side of things us Californians like to have a plate that matches the vintage of the car. I have a blue plate car which is correct for the year. People pay a lot of money for yellow or black plates and it's allowed to obtain a set of vintage plates and use them on your car. A black plate car doesn't mean that it's tracable all the way back to new. For some it's a selling point just to have matching vintage plates.
