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On the Road with John Larson
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Sep 5, 2024
On this episode of "On the Road," John Larson - founder of Oldpl8s.com - talks about restoring old license plates, and the cars that left an indelible mark on him. See all of John's work on his website: https://www.oldpl8s.com/index.htm 00:00 - Introduction 00:25 - Origin of OLDPL8S.com 02:35 - Rare Plates 03:10 - Future of OLDPL8S.com 03:40 - Expanding to Other States 04:32 - John’s Defining Moment in a Car 06:02 - Get in touch with OLDPL8S.com 06:46 - Plate Restoration 07:57 - Restoring Cars 09:48 - Closing
View Video Transcript
0:00
Hello and welcome to JC Whitney's On The Road
0:08
I'm your host Angel Sala-Balen. And today we are welcomed and joined by John Larson
0:13
He is a founder of OldPlates.com and he has a restoring hobby on the side
0:21
John, how are you? Good. Welcome. Thank you. Yes, sir. So John, I understand that you have OldPlates.com
0:28
It's an assortment of vintage California license plates that you put online and you sell those
0:34
plates to anybody in the world. And you also have an assortment of hobby links on that website that show vintage cars, mint
0:43
conditioned vintage cars throughout all of the eras that you could find
0:48
And gas stations throughout the industrial period until modern era as well
0:54
Where and how did you get into all of that? Well, I've always liked old cars. When I go to swap meets for the cars, I pick up some old license plates and then tried
1:01
my hand at restoring them. It took a while to learn different techniques and everything
1:05
I finally got halfway decent at it. And then I learned how to do web coding at work
1:10
And so then I went out and got the site and put them up there initially just, you know
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here's some examples of plates so people can see what's out there for each year. I had enough to where I was able to start selling them
1:20
In California, they have what they call the year of manufacture program. If you have a set of plates and nobody else is using those numbers and it matches the
1:28
year of your car, like 1932 for a 1932 car, then you can register your car with those
1:33
and then you don't have to drive around with the modern plates. So the whole car looks more complete that way
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So right now, the year of manufacture program goes from 1914 as the first year California
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issued plates all the way up through 1980. So if you have a car or truck or motorcycle or trailer in those between 1914, 1980, you
1:51
can register it with old plates. And so that's what I have out on the website
1:55
Do you know if that was kind of geared towards keeping the nostalgia of the cars together
2:01
or was there just like, I don't know, a government reason on that
2:05
No, they started the program about 30 years ago, roughly. There were people said, hey, I have an old car and it kind of spoils the look of new
2:13
license plates. Everything else is as original as possible except for the license plates
2:18
So thankfully, California said, OK, if you have some old plates, nobody else has the
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numbers because some of the numbers they reused in later years, then you can put them
2:26
on your car. And so that's what I provide. Where and when did all of this come into fruition
2:31
I know you say that you did start that website. It's been about 20 years now
2:35
Within those 20 years, do you have anything in your collection that's especially rare
2:40
or that you're most proud of? Prior to California issuing the plates in 1914, the state would issue you the numbers
2:48
and you would go down to your hardware store and get a kit and it had a piece of tin and
2:52
then house numbers that you put on the house, individual numbers. So you put those on
2:57
They call those pre-state because it was prior to the state issuing plates
3:01
So I have a few pre-state plates. The Auto Club also issued plates made out of porcelain and those are highly desired
3:09
and sought after. Where would you like to see your website, oldplates.com, move into in the future
3:16
The content of it is based on examples of each plate that I have for sale
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So it's probably not going to change too much content wise. It'd be nice to get a little higher in the Google search
3:29
But it is what it is. People can go out and they see the pictures of the actual plates I have for sale
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So they can see them ahead of time and they contact me and make arrangements
3:41
Any plans to maybe go into any other states? Are there any other states in the plate scheme
3:45
I don't know about the other states. There's 50 states. There's a lot
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California is by far and away the most valuable of the plates
3:52
Yeah, yeah. Do we have any close runner ups? New York? I don't know
3:56
Well, it's funny you mentioned New York. Some years are real popular
4:01
So in the late 40s, early 50s, a lot of Mercury's and cars like that
4:05
Set of plates for 49 in California would probably run you maybe $600
4:10
I had a set of 49 New York that I paid $30 for and I sold them for $30
4:17
The market varies wildly from state to state. I don't even know if New York has the program to let you put them on the car
4:24
That would be better also. So I have enough trouble dealing with California without getting into the other states
4:30
I hear you. I hear you. Do you have a defining moment in a car that shaped you in an inspiring way
4:37
My dad was in construction when I was a kid and he had old equipment
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He had World War II surplus equipment, GI trucks and things. And so he would go down to the yard where they kept the equipment
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And while he was talking to the guy that ran the yard, I would go climb in the oldest truck
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possible and pretend I was driving it. So probably at five years old, I got the bug for old cars
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Just running around this yard. Yeah, just playing around. Yeah. And so, I mean, the smell of those old trucks, it's, you know, horsehair in the seats and
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the grease and everything. It just, to this day, it still brings back memories of that
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Yeah, that's cool. Now, I think I remember those trucks of that era were manufactured by a company that's
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no longer with us. AMC, American Motor Company. Was that an AMC truck
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There was a variety of different trucks, truck brands then. He had international
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They don't make international. I don't know if they still make those. Oh, yeah, right
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Like the Scouts and stuff like that. I know there's a small one. Yeah, way before that. Yeah
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Those were the enemy trucks that they used in World War II. You know, troop carriers and things
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And he would make them into water trucks and dump trucks. And were those AK Duesenhams
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Are those Duesenhams? Yeah, they might have been out there quite that big. It's funny, they had 170 cubic inch motors in them
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And I don't know how they were able to tow around troops and water and all that stuff
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but they were geared really low and they work. Yeah, fantastic. John, how can people stay up to date with what you're doing at OldPlates.com and maybe
6:06
get in contact with you online? There's contact info on the website
6:10
They can email me and just go to the Old Plates. And Old Plates is O-L-D-P-L, the number eight S. Kind of like if you had a personalized plate
6:18
So they just contact me and I don't have a shopping cart or anything. I like to talk to the people and make sure that is this really going to work for your car
6:26
For example, if somebody buys one of these kit cars and they say, hey, I bought a 57
6:30
356 Porsche Speedster. And I say, what does it say on the title
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Well, it says 1980 Volkswagen because that's what they built it off of
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That's not, as far as the DMG is concerned, it's not a 56 Speedster
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So those are the things I like to make sure that when I sell them something, it's going to work
6:46
Where did you learn how to restore these plates? And can you walk me through the process
6:51
So basically for plates, the first thing you got to do is get it cleaned up, get all the
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crud off there, the rust, the paint, you know, and dirt, grease
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And then you start to straighten the metal and you just have a little anvil and hammers
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and things and you just bang on it and try to tap it back into shape. And if it's got cracks, you got to try to fix those and fill the pits and the holes
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and things. So you're basically bondoing the plates and like sanding them down, recovering them
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As little as possible. If I'm getting pretty good at the metal work to where when I finished pounding on it, it's
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almost ready to paint. Very little light skim coat of some kind of filler
7:28
Now, between all your customers, do your customers prefer the more like vintage look
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where it has like a patina to it or do they want something that is fresh
7:38
Most of what I do is restored fresh. People tend to want the finish on the plate to match the finish on their car
7:44
So it kind of looks funny if you've got an old car with a lot of patina and you've got brand new plates or vice versa. Yeah
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So, but most people I deal with have restored their cars, so they want it fresh. Fresh. Yeah
7:56
So that makes sense. So how'd you get into restoring cars and do you have a favorite car out of your collection
8:04
I got into restoring cars because when you own an old car, there's not many people that
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can work on it and it's getting less and less and less. The shops I used to go to for things that were over my head are closing
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So you just, by necessity, you have to do it yourself. And it's kind of satisfaction of doing it yourself
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There's been times when I've got into something and wish I never started, button it back up and take it to somebody who knows what they're doing. Yeah. Yeah
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So those links on your page with those tutorials, did you provide those
8:33
Well, the one with the tutorial is I have a Nash Metropolitan, so I wanted to help out
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other people that were doing this common repairs, like how to change the rear end out and things
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like that. So I took pictures along the way and put it out there so somebody else who's doing that
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could look at it and get the help. And I've gotten a lot of help
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That's the great thing about the internet is you get stumped and you go into one of the chat rooms and you say, hey, how do I get the bolt off of this? Whatever
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Within a half an hour, somebody will respond and say, this is how you do it. Oh, great. Now I'm going to go back out and work on it again. Yeah
9:04
I think when people are having the argument whether the internet's good or not, I specifically
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refer to being able to work on my own car via the internet
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And that justifies or gives me enough to say, yeah, the internet's good
9:17
Oh, no. The old days, you had to write a letter and wait a week for somebody to respond
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That's it. Right. Now you can go on and find out how to, especially modern cars. Yeah
9:27
You need to change a window regulator on a Mazda. You go out and there's a guy showing you how to do exact things. Exactly
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It's really helpful. Not so much on the old cars, but the websites I go on specialize in that stuff
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Or I go to, if you have a weird car, you got to join the club so they can help you out
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They have the parts. They know how to work on it. Things like that
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Man, that's fascinating. That is so fascinating. I wish we had more time. I would love to just keep on tapping
9:51
I feel like I would just find a segue with you on any topic related to cars and we could
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just start going down those. I'll spare you. I'm sure you have plenty of projects and restoring to do and get back to work
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For our viewers out there, once again, if you want to get a vintage old plate for your
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restored or patina car, please go to oldplates.com and that's plates, P-L-8-S dot com
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Reach out to John and he's going to go ahead and hook you up. John, it was a pleasure talking to you today
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Thank you.
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