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.

Read the last half of this, Daniel. It's mostly bullshit in the beginning parts.

Why "WTF", you don't get it or this is unnecessary?

Well, it's perfect

By the way, I know not all of you don't get an idea about JP plates, guys like you obviously have a clear concept about it. But apparently some people don't even know what shall & what shall not be seen on a JP plate.

Thanks for this write-up! I had to admit, I had to restrain myself from correcting people when I kept seeing 350Zs or other large displacement cars with "500" license plates (or, worse, the yellow K-car license plates).

The over-use of the Shoshinsha mark strikes me as odd, too, but that's a matter of opinion.

I think it's quite interesting, since I'm interested in Japanese cars and everything around them. I didn't know most of that ^^

I have just one question.. How comes, that people have japanese licence plates with a serial number of 5 different numbers?
Example:


It's not because of this picture but because I have seen many cars with those plates like 00-000.

Greetings

# Morpheus Hell : .. ok but this is still still a game. i wanna know one thing.. WHO CARES??

You don't care, yes, I know that and that's absolutely none of my business. But don't try to consider everyone here as the same as you, that's why I wrote all these stuff; Gaining some knowledge will never be a bad thing after all.

# Hinata23 : I think it's quite interesting, since I'm interested in Japanese cars and everything around them. I didn't know most of that ^^

I have just one question.. How comes, that people have japanese licence plates with a serial number of 5 different numbers?
Example:


It's not because of this picture but because I have seen many cars with those plates like 00-000.

Greetings

That's not a real JP license plate, it's fake or some sort of decoration; A real JP plate has only four digits for serial number and it must be, if it has more, it's not a real one. Just like Takumi's AE86 - it should be 13-95 or 39-54, instead of 13-954, which is a really bad example.

# NITROLANCER1 : I don't think it has any significant meaning, just more numbers.

Anyways thanks for the lesson Unseen!

You're welcome Just trying to make people know more about Japanese car culture.

Added 9 minutes later:

# Harrison15 : Thanks for this write-up! I had to admit, I had to restrain myself from correcting people when I kept seeing 350Zs or other large displacement cars with "500" license plates (or, worse, the yellow K-car license plates).

The over-use of the Shoshinsha mark strikes me as odd, too, but that's a matter of opinion.

That Shoshinsha symbol can be called as "Soshinoya", which means "beginners" in Japanese tuning societies, and there is another yellow/orange drip-shaped symbol, which is for elder/advanced drivers.

And that will be the "Koleshiya" symbol.



Anyway, stop pasting the "Shoshinsha" sticker on your car... because some people will probably understand you as a n00b at driving...

Wasted time imo. Anyone curious in making a proper plate could've used This tool or simply search for fonts and read the relative article on wikipedia, which explains the concept pretty well.
These are my 2 cents, I hope i did't insult anyone.

Er cosidetto "JDM" logo Significa: Autista/Conducente con poca esperienza al volante o il cosidetto Principiante.

[ENG]

The so called "JDM" logo means: Driver with poor driving experience or BEGINNERS.


P.S. If you're curious about Japanese car culture go read up some articles on same Wikipedia, don't be lazy and wait for the ready stuff on the plate.

Very nice of you Unseen for posting this its very interesting and logical for a lot of us Thanks