So I am thinking about removing the front L-Plate bracket when car goes in for paint. Anyone in St. Louis area running a car w/o front plate,... how is that working out for you? I might mount the plate on the air dam under the front (like this other TGO member) not sure if that would be acceptable for the local enforcement. What has been you experiences.

No front plate on my car or Krista's IROC-Z. I've only got 2 tickets for it but it's been a while since I've gotten one. Krista has never been pulled over for it. Neither of us has it mounted anywhere on the car, it just lays in the back seat. And you'll find that some officers will let you get by with it mounted below and some will still write you up for it if they are having a bad day.

Final verdict: Take it off, it looks better without

Thanks Nick, I am leaning towards removing it, so what is a ticket like that worth? Do you just mail in check...
I also figure if I keep that bracket I can always put it back on if it becomes a big problem.

Also thinking about removing the body side molding, thoughts...

I'm from KC but I have no tickets for it, i used to get warnings for it when I lived in columbia but still no ticket

I think the tickets were around the $75 range. And yea you can mail them in, no court appearance necessary. If you wanted to, you could remove the bracket and fill the holes with body filler before it goes in for paint. That would look sharp. As far as removing the body moldings, don't do it until you're ready for paint. And depending on how much you drive it, I might not do it anyways (except for the paint process of coarse). If you drive it alot to places with parking lots, you're bound to get a door ding here and there and those moldings really do save you some heartache.

Car goes in for complete paint Sunday after the cruise, would have gone in earlier but I said I wanted to hold it out for Sunday.
I like the body moding for the function, but Sunday you can look at mine, they don't look good, and as for parking I take the end spot and far away, only risky lots for me will be my wife's work lot (partially because she is parking it not me) and any little league baseball parking lot, otherwise I should have little problem. I have been fairly lucky in my life avoiding the door dents, but then again I don't park near anyone... I don't take two spots, but I will take the end and hug the curb on the end side, and try to park on the end side that would more likely give me the passenger side of a car if a car parked next to me, yes it is an art, and I pay way to much attention.

Thanks Nick and KamikazeIroccy for the feedback.

I hear ya on the parking rules, but sometimes you can't avoid them. Like sometime last year I came out of Shnuck's from getting some groceries and I had parked as far away as possible and somehow a shopping cart had managed to find its way right into the driver side door leaving a disgusting dent in the side of my car.

If the molding is bad because it is faded or something that is easily fixed. They can be painted just like the rest of the car. We had to paint Krista's moldings because she was changing colors.

im glad im not the only one unable to have a front plate on a bird



licese plate brackets for the birds are impossible to find, have been looking for one for years for the 82, to no avail


its crazy

im just gonna run around with the plate in the dash

i dont really care

I never ran one on my '98 because it had that cool cover with the bird on it that goes where the plate could go...'course in the 2 years I owned the car I got about 6 tickets for it. Funny thing is I see 'vettes running around with their cover in place(with no plate) all the time, makes me wonder if they get hassled as much as I use to.

Randy, if you want to run a front plate go get some large "L" shaped angle brackets, mount the bottom part under the car where you can make some holes that will never be seen and mount the plate to the upper part. That's what I had to do for my Jeep.