Sunday, April 20, 2008

Number Plate

I've been at it again - thinking about my cars aesthetics! My latest purchase is a new number plate for the front of my Spitfire.

I've been messing around with the front of the car since I bought it! When I first got it it came with an absolutely massive plate that blocked off virtually the whole of the radiator grill. Unsurprisingly there were some cooling issues! I'm sure they were largely due to the radiator, which was standard size and looked like it had seen better days, but the huge plate didn't help!

To sort it I fitted a wide radiator and cut the edges of the plates off, leaving the minimum legal distance between letters and the edge of the plates. The cooling problems were sorted but I still wasn't happy with how it looked. There was only so much chopping down I could do with the letters as big as they were (way bigger than the legal minimum size!) and I was left with square edges on each side which looked a bit odd! Something had to be done...

I looked at various options. Stick on plates didn't do it for me. I don't like the way they look mounted almost horizontally on the bonnet. I don't like the look of plates mounted on the spoiler either so that only left me with the option of using a smaller plate in the standard location.

This is where things got a little bit err....complex. In order to get what I wanted I was going to have to bend and break a few laws. Basically, I wanted a 3/4 size plates and these aren't strictly road legal. After doing my homework and looking on a few forums I couldn't find anyone that had been pulled over for having a smaller front plate so I decided to go for it.

This led me to the next problem. Getting number plates made is supposed to involve lots of hassle with ID and proof of ownership and stuff. The way the number plate sellers get around this is by selling plates that are for 'show' only. So without all that hassle I got http://www.fancyplates.com/ to make one up for me. It looks great and arrived the next day. So for good service they get recommended by me!