Commentary: From stamped metal to digital, the strange history of our GLDN ST8 PL8S
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Set us as preferred Your answer, please -- and no going out to the garage and peeking:What are the colors of the California license plate?Just hazard a guess.You must see them a gazillion times a day.Fine.
They’re blue on white.But you could have said gold on black, or even red on white, and you’d have been right.Ever since California issued its first license plates, in 1914, it’s been trying to keep up with our passion for automobiles.We now stand at a smidge over 39 million Californians and a smidge over 36 million registered vehicles.
Even AI can’t speculate on how many cars have rolled over the roads here in the decades since 1914, but the state has been ever harder pressed to keep changing plate colors and numbers and letters to match those numbers and to dodge any duplication.Los Angeles is a complex place.Luckily, there's someone who can provide context, history and culture.
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And now the DMV has made its latest switcheroo.Since 1980, regular plates have been constructed as number-letter-letter-letter-number-number-number.
That entire combination has now run out, so California license plates began this year using number-number-number-letter-letter-letter-number.Oh for those simpler days — like 1905, when California first required “motor cars” to be registered, but didn’t issue license plates.Drivers sometimes made their own, carved from wood, stamped onto metal, the numbers mounted on screens, or painted onto boards.In 1914, the state realized it had better get a ha...