More Leno

zippycar said:

How does he get away with the rear number plate?

Or is the reg number McLaren?

Or am I just being dumb (please don't answer that one!)

Click to expand...

Not a dumb question. That isn't a registration plate (or as we call them, license plate) on the rear of Jay's car there. That's a dealership plaquered for McLaren Beverly Hills which looks like this:



In the State of California you are not issued license plates at the time of delivery on new vehicles so most dealerships have something like this which they install that fills the void instead and gets them some free advertising.

When you buy a new car you get a small form showing the VIN, vehicle details, registered owner's info, and the date of sale. That gets taped to the lower right corner of the inside of the front windshield. It is typically folded in such a way that you can only read the VIN and the date of sale from outside the car. This temporary registration is good for 90 days while the State DMV processes the paperwork the dealership submits for your registration. Then the DMV issues you the hard plates to mount on the car which come via mail.

For most people the wait is about 2-3 weeks and then they install their new plates. What ends up happening with a lot of high profile people or people with high end cars is they receive the plates in the mail but continue to drive around with the temp registration in the window, sometimes for a year or more. It is hardly uncommon to see a vehicle being driven without plates in California and so as long as the car is clean and appears new I wouldn't suspect you'd ever get stopped by police solely for that. Even if you get pulled over for something else, unless you are a dick about it you probably wouldn't even get cited for not having the plates on - just a verbal warning to put them on the car in most cases.

Some states here do issue a plate direct from the dealership or a temporary cardboard plate with a tag number while the paperwork gets processed. Each one has its own policies and procedures for how that works.

>8^)
ER


EDIT: Rats - beaten by Senna!! Now I know how everyone else felt.

I got something similar to that on my MR2 Spyder when I picked it up in Georgia. It didn't have any kind of identification number on it, just the date of expiration 30-days from the transaction date. It was written in black marker which would keep you from running it for any great length of time beyond when your hard plates arrive. Here's a shot of it during one of my stops along Route 66 in Oklahoma.



>8^)
ER

Is it an amazing coincidence as I opened this thread to add another reply that my telephone rang and it was Jay Leno calling?

Anyway - more on that later.

SP Engineering recently paid a visit to the garage with their Skyline GT-R fitted with the SPE750R package for Jay to try out. A video will be forthcoming on Leno's website for sure.

In the process they snapped a bunch of great pics of many of the things in his garage:



Click the photo to enjoy the rest.

>8^)
ER