For this lesson, we start with some pictures... PURE JDM YO.







When one of our local car dealer took over the authority of Mazda, their TV commercials are full of those "Japanese" stuff, then a Japanese slogan and JP license plates on the car. Because of that, many Taiwanese thought "I'm so JDM" after owning a Mazda car - as many owners of the best-selling Mazda SUV called "Tribute" thought so, at least.

The Studio Photographies of Mercedes, BMW, Audi, Volkswagen and Opel. They all like to hang European license plates on their products - and those are all from where they were manufactured. Mercedes with S (Stuttgart,)BMW with M (Munich,) Audi with IN (Ingolstadt,) and Volkswagen with WoB (Wolfsburg...) etc...









For American cars, they go with American plates, of course. And the most popular states would be California and New York. No matter what state are those car come from, they all like to put those on.



So the fact of Japanese car goes with Japanese plates will be also unalterable! Well, more and more Taiwanese owners of German cars would put a "D" tag on their cars (even if they don't know what it means...) and add a fake Germany plates under the realo plates. Alright, this random bullshit ends here. Let's talk about German plates some other day, if anyone interested. Our topic will remain around JP plates.

JP plates has a quite easy format to realize. Upper left is the registration region, upper right goes for vehicle type, lower left is a Hiragana symbol and lower right is serial number. I will explain in details below:



Doesn't look complicated, right?

I won't explain part A & C too much. Let's stay focus on "vehicle type" (part B ) and "serial numbers" (part D). What will be the proper digits for your car?

Let's first take a look on part B.



Mmm, DATSUN! It owns a set of plates with vehicle type begins in "5", which means it's a "small car", this kind of car has its length under 4.7m, width under 1.7m, height under 2m, and the displacement under 2000c.c., if this car has exceed ANY of these conditions, it goes with "3". If your car has vehicle type initiated with 3, of course you're having more taxes than 5 does. So there are many cars with shrunk bumpers, to force the car having its dimension under the boundary of the vehicle type initiation of "3".




(Both are Y31 Cedric. But the upper one has shrunk bumpers to keep its dimension under the boundaries of vehicle type 3)

K-Cars have a 660c.c. engine with them, which go with yellow plates, they of course have the least tax to pay!



But the weird thing is, you see some cars with a vehicle type begins with 7 on streets. According to local stations, this happens when the car owners want to "pick" their license plates, to fulfill the lack of initiation 5. But this isn't a common scene. Plates are mostly black symbols on white plates, K-cars with yellow ones. But there are green symbols with white plates, that's called "luminous plates" which has cold-lighting bulbs embedded. It glows at night when you put on the headlights. Of course this is legal, but the odd thing is that it is not subsidized by government.



(A Y35 Cedric with luminous plates)

8 is a interesting initiation. 800 goes for police cars, 80 is for police k-cars. And 88's are a part of police cars, and some for mobile loudspeakers.

It's funny that some heavily tuned racer-alike cars would go with 88 plates, sounds a bit ridiculous? It's because this kind of cars will unlikely to pass any vehicle inspection. So they will usually just put a tiny loudspeaker inside the car, to put on a 88 plate by the name of a "mobile loudspeaker", which has no limitations about the looking.



(A police-use 350Z with 800 plates; No shit, it's a NISMO S-Tune!)

1 goes with haulers, 2 goes for 11-seats buses; 9 for specialize trucks like cranes, derricks. And 0 is for large construction vehicles, which is often not granted with license plates.

Alright, now this is the part that most people don't get it.



See the initial dot for the serial number? And there is no dash between.

This is the regulation: DOTS are replacements for 0, if your car has its serial number reads "00-01" it will write as ".. .1"; if it reads "00-63" it will be written as ".. 63" if it reads "03-52" then it will be ".3 52". But if 0 is at the end of the numbers, it will still be written as 0. Also, if a plate has its serial number begins with ANY AMOUNT OF 0 (1, 2 or 3 0's on the front), then there will be no dash.



(Example for "When 0 is at the end")

THERE IS NO 00-00 IN JAPANESE PLATES SO DON'T BRAG FOR IT.



And the last thing to cover with is the "Permitted License Plate", which can be explained as temporary license plate. Cars with this kind of plates are tax-free, but you can't wear it for long, tho.

So I think that's all we need to sort out, I wrote this article because it seemed some mod makers are begin to make their own JP license plates. And the results are often with obvious mistakes, all I wish is this article brings us more precise JP plate replications, not some sort of retarded "Neither Fish nor Fowl" sheit. Thus, prevent quality from fucked up.