I thought about using a hide the plate mount, but there's no way it would survive the hills here. I bought the oem bumper mounted plate from jagbits for about 40 bucks and will zip tie it to the front and get the ticket signed off. Gosh, I sure hope those zip ties hold. I mean, it would be AWFUL if the new plate fell off when I got home. Just terrible.

Thanks to everyone for the tips.

PS- the SF meter maids can ticket CV5200 (no plates), CV5201 (proper plate location), CV5201(f) (plate cover) and CV5204(a) (expired tags). You have 21 days to get it signed off by any peace officer- but the car was a private sale and the original owner can't find the second plate! (I've only owned the damn thing two weeks!) Time to spend an hour or three at the DMV again getting this mess straightened out.

 

We're fortunate in South Carolina...there is no front plate required, only the rear.

I feel bad for you guys...I would hate to clutter up my favorite design feature on the car...that beautiful, growling front scoop. Knowing me, I'd probably drive without a front plate until I got caught, paid an irritating fine, and THEN I would reluctantly find a way to install a plate upfront.

 

go for the altec retractable licence plate holder.

 

California is sad. I still remember getting a ticket for no front license plate 30 yrs. ago

 

I live in a "Law and order" kind of county and don't really want to give anyone probable cause to stop me for the grevious offense of not having a front plate.

I bent my license plate to match the contour of the mesh area and then attached it with some bolts. No drilling or other modification necessary. To me, it looks like it's "supposed" to be there.

I threaded the bolts from the front, through the plate, through the grill, through some large washers, and into nuts on the backside.

I was a bit worried that covering over that mesh area would affect the cooling, but no problems so far, and we had 100 days over 100F here in Texas this summer.

The only overheating I had was sitting in traffic for 30 minutes when it was 110F outside, and in that situation I think the engine and radiator fans would have been sucking air from everywhere around, not just through the mesh.

 

i dont know what i was thinking. my idea was to have the plate retract into the opening in the grill area. obviously the vertical bars would prevent this. i'm going to install under the bumper and forever watch for curbs.