Vanity, Thy Name is Plate

When building a vintage vehicle, everything is personal. From the paint scheme to the wheels, hot rodders work on each and every detail to ensure that the final product is truly a representation of themselves. One of the most popular items to personalize is the license plate. While an original plate has its own vintage charm, many rodders are drawn to the personalized "vanity" plate.The first license plates surfaced in 1901 in New York and were made by car owners - usually, they just put their initials on their plates.  In 1903, Massachusetts produced the first government issued license plates. Today, vanity plates allow us to add the ultimate personal touch.The following plates come from this weekend's Temecula Rod Run. Later this week, we'll be bringing you the rest of these cars as we feature hot rod highlights of the show.And, because we can't resist getting our nerd on, we must admit that our title is a play on a quote (or misquote, rather) of Shakespeare's Hamlet. While popular history remembers the quote as "Vanity, thy name is woman," the quote is in fact, "Frailty, thy name is woman." We're glad the misquote is more popular, after all, a smash-up of a Shakespearean misquote and vanity plates is a match made in heaven, no?