Front License Plate

For all poor soles like moi, who have to place a front plate on the car. My car was from a jurisdiction that did not require front plates. As such, when i picked it up from the dealer there were no front plate attachments of any sort: the front had only two holes with bumper plugs. - probably not even from Eric! i bought a Bell metal plate surround that was only marginally larger than the plate. The holes were @ 8.5 inch spread, rather than the 11" spread of the bumper plug holes. All i did was drill through the plate and the surround. As it was a fairly soft metal, i could bend it to the exact shape of the bumper. I stuck drywall plugs into the bumper plug holes and screwed the plate onto the bumper. I stuck a couple of black screw head plastic covers onto the screws to make them disappear. This picture tries to show how it follows the horizontal fold of the bumper. It also follows the rake of the front rather than sitting perpendicular to the bumper. From this angle of the car, the plate foot print follows the bumper line so snugly. It is hard to see the plate at all, yet if this had been the standard front plate and assemby, it would be quite obvious probably sticking out more than an inch. Lastly a front on look again; the foot print of the plate makes it only somewhat ugly rather than driving you to go plateless and risk the wrath of those cops with nothing better to do but write tickets! I got mine from Canadian tire - by Bell and it came in black, chrome and rough metal look. Probably about $6 or so. It had to be easy for me to figure it out!

Looks much more aerodynamic than the one Porsche put on! Not bad for a self install. Why didn't you just use the factory location?

Good job! Since you HAD to put one on it, I think you did a really nice job of of fitting it.

That looks good CPA4S. I live in Virginia where a front plate is required. While it was tolerable on the stock bumper, it looks really horrible on the RUF RGT bumper so I took it off and put on bumper plugs from Eric. Luckilly I haven't gotten a ticket (knock on wood) but if it gets to be a hassle I was thinking of doing something similar to what you did. I agree that the OEM license plate holder sticks out too far. I want to mount the plate flush with the bumper but I am concerned that the metal plate would scratch the paint. Here is my solution... Get a rubber plate holder like they use at the dealerships and cut off the "straps". Remove the bumper plugs and screw in the rubber holder flush to the bumper. Bend the license plate and fit it in to the rubber holder. This is similar to how they mount license plates in Europe. The advantage of using the rubber holder is that it will lessen the chances of scratching the bumper and you can adjust the height of the plate because you can screw it in to the bumper at the desired height (just use self tapping screws through the rubber).

I unfortunately am supposed to have one on my car. I took the plate and sheared it off on the top just above the WASHINGTON and just below the numbers and letters. I took the mounting bracket and cut the lower portion to match the width. I now have a mini legal front plate with a nice looking custom mount. I than took the whole thing and threw it in the trunk, I'll take it out and tell the officer it fell off. I still think I am going to get lit up when I see a trooper come at me head on. I know that the omission of the front plate is on the docket for the state.

Great mods guys. The Oregon DMV got their panties all in a bunch when I showed up to get my registration with no front plate. I'll follow one of your suggestions. Where do you get the rubber dealer plate holder, programatorre ?

Stan, your sig is off. You should be using the IMG tag instead of the URL tag to display the picture. HTML Code: [IMG]http://forums.rennlist.com/upload/johnny_car_copy6.jpg[/IMG] Cheers,

Lexpilot, I buried the link in there. I found it on http://www.guard81.com/products.asp?...ay_Type=detail . I am sure you can find it at several shops online.

programmatore, thanks for sharing the computer skills. I tried for a long time to figure it out. Another great feature of the board; nice people.b

thats a pretty good idea - the front is going to get scratched anyway at some point: I like your idea of the rubber because it is impervious to winter. If mine doesn't like the 2006/07 winter i will replace with your suggestion. Bottom line is to minimize the intrusion of the front plate overall foot print imo.

here is another picture i just took of the front plate footprint. - small

how about a sticker that says your plate #?

Tom, like a vinyl sticker that is a duplicate copy of the metal plate?

Boy...now that is an interesting idea! I wonder if that would work? Has anyone actually tried this? Probably need to have it made with some sort of "reflective" vinyl to fool the locals, but man, I think I am going to try to figure this one out!

i wouldnt mind putting a european license plate on the front of my car. i wonder if that would pass

Moogle, that's a h*ll of an idea. You could scan the plate using stickback clear vinyl and get an excellent representation. Hmmm. In MA the only annual little tag you get is for the back plate, so the front one could be cut down and scanned. The other thing I thought of is using velcro, but since I have a silver car the dark velcro would show when the plate is off. I do agree that it looks like sh*t if you have to use the factory setup. One thing I have noticed tho. I can pull the entire bracket out of the holes and plug them and keep the mounted plate in the trunk as "broken" Obviously would prefer no front plate, especially with the angle of the front bumper cover. In my case with the "911" emblem in the center radiator I would really have no place to put a vinyl plate exept above the bumper plugs. UGH! Oh, and BTW, although I've not lowered the car yet, you can see the difference in pic 2 vs pic 1 after I added 6mm spacers all around.

I've never seen the stock front plate holder, but maybe you could do something with magnets? Someone on the S4 board did a pretty slick install with them. An example done on an Audi S4

Nice job on the mounting, much cleaner looking than the stock mounts. For those who are required to have a front plate be careful, when I was in traffic court a few months ago over half the people were there for lack of a front plate plus whatever else they could find. I'll keep the plate just to avoid giving the man a reason to pull me over. Power to the people!

Cpa4S. Awsome work mate! but if ur a legal stickler like i am and/or someone who likes to push his luck, the HTA states that a plate must be displayed on both front and rear. BUT it doesn't say where on the front. u could leave it on ur dashboard if u really wanted too, as long as its visible from the front.

I have installed my front license plate using the rubber Quick-Change Plate Holder from Guardian (about $11 plus S&H) that programmatore first mentioned in his 15Apr05 post. I believe that the result is a significant improvement in looks while making it easier to remove the front plate if necessary (e.g. for mounting a bra at a DE). I may improve further on this design�s fit by bending the plate along a horizontal axis in addition to the vertical axis bend I�m now using. First, I cut off the mounting flaps that come with the Plate Holder � a chisel works better than a box cutter on this soft, but thick rubber. I then inserted the plate into the holder upside down (i.e. the flanges on the side where the flaps were are now on the bottom). I drilled two, appropriately measured 1/8� holes through both the plate and the holder using a high speed bit. I then drilled two 1/2� holes (coaxial with the 1/8� holes) through only the rubber holder using a Forstner bit (A flat cutting wood bit that is good for a cleaner cut through the soft rubber. A box cutter might also work). These holes were cut to allow the rubber holder to fit over the existing mounting plugs allowing for a much better fit at the sides. I used two #8x1/2 stainless pan head sheet metal screws to hold the entire assembly to the existing mounting plugs. I painted the screw heads as well as the exposed rubber beneath the plate�s mounting holes using Ace Hardware paint pens of the appropriate color. The screw heads are fine. I�m still considering other methods to conceal the plate�s mounting holes. The photos seem to make these holes more noticeable than they really are (harsh lighting).