Greetings - thought I would share some facts gathered on this. Last month, the governor signed senate bill 1429 (SB-1429) into effect, which moves the YEAR-OF-MANUFACTURE license plate provision forward to cars up to 1980 model year. This is NOT the "legacy" license plate program, which is the law that allows one to purchase a new imitation of an original plate. That program failed to generate enough interest for a blue plate to be made an option. The Y.O.M. plate is better anyway - one uses an old original plate with patina and the original look of the stamping and painting.
Here is the updated law:
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billCompareClient.xhtml?bill_id=201520160SB1429
One must find a set of plates that has the year sticker of their car on them. If you bring a plate to DMV that was pressed in your year, but it has an earlier or later sticker on it - no go.
The CA DMVs don't yet have info on how to execute this update to the law yet, so don't rush in. I went in to the DMV, then spoke with two people at the DMV HQ, who knew nothing of it, and then got a hold of the DMV's field relations number, whom I called, and they knew they had heard of the new law, but also had no idea when they would be ready to follow it. I think that demand could help speed this along, so if you feel like it, call
916-657-6560 and ask when SB-1429 will be ready so you can put your groovy set of original
CALIFORNIA blues on your old car. They answered quickly on that line.
Kudos to Mr. Brown for approving this groovy new law, and to Senator Jim W. Nielsen for being mindful enough to propose it.
