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Texas’ long license plate nightmare is over.

Posted on | 2 June 2009 | Comments Off

As Texans, we should rejoice over news the state has begun to issue license plates with the  new design.

1993 Texas PlateRemember when this was the standard licene plate?   It was the most color Texas had had on a plate ever. Most folks thought the flag and “TEXAS” just about said all that needed to be said. The design was simple and striking and did not give bombastic calls to duty (“Live free or die!” – whatever the hell that means) or overt bragging (“The Sunshine State” – except when there’s hurricanes).

Hemisfair PlateThen, came the Sesquicentennial (that’s 150th anniversary) of Texas’ statehood (ignoring that little dustup in 1865). Up until then, the only word on the Texas plate beside “TEXAS” had been “HEMISFAIR” to celebrate the 1968 HemisFair Expo in San Antonio. That’s right, there never had been so much as a “Remember the Alamo!” on Texas plates, just “TEXAS” – ’nuff said.

Texas Sesquicentennial PlateWell, the folks who make such decisions decided we needed a special Sesquicentennial plate. That’s it on the left. Okay, it was a big deal to many. Personally, I liked the flag better, but you have to make something that will sell on eBay in ten years. We got our special plate with more words on it than ever – “150 YEARS OF STATEHOOD’ (highway department didn’t have to learn how to spell sesquicentennial).

That soon passed and then the design treachery moved into the picture. I should say pictures. The state flag plate was out. The Sesquicentennial Plate was out. The designers came up with this:

Current plate

What is there to like about this plate? You’ve got a cowboy. OK, Texas has cowboys. You’ve got oil derricks (the kind we have not seen for decades); Texas has oil. You have the space shuttle. Uh? Ok, “Houston,…” aka the Johnson Space Center is in Texas – but the shuttle isn’t. It occasionally makes stops in Texas, but it’s strapped to a Boeing 747.   It’s like on any given day you’d see a cowboy riding along by antique oil rigs with the shuttle overhead.

Are those mountains in the left lower corner or fire ant mounds?

It was so ugly! I think it was designed that way on purpose to drive people to buy the state’s many and varied (and much more expensive) vanity and specialty plates. Seriously, I can see them saying – “Give them this and they won’t hesitate a New York minute to pony up cash for different design”(chuckles and laughter fill the meeting room).

I seriously was saddened when my flag plate had to go and was replaced by the ludicrous, new design. They say it was the first three-color design (I guess what looked like red, blue and black on previous designs was just red and blue).

It was just dumb!

That was what passed for design in 2000 in Texas. You ask why Texans were so eager to vote on a new license plate?

my texas plateThey did try to sneak the old design into the competition. To save it, they stuck an American flag on the shuttle (that’s not there in real life) and stylized the state outline as a state flag. It still was ugly. It got the fewest votes. I think the designer and his or her family must have burned out several computers getting it the votes it did garner.

It was just dumber!

New Texas plate This is what won (yep, folks did turn down a simpler design and my choice*). It’s fairly simple and straight forward, with an homage to the flag in upper left hand corner. The state outline is a stylized flag.

At the base, are the wonderful mountains (not rolling hills) of West Texas. To be there is fantastic as you are wrapped up in the amazing grandeur and wonder, driving from a desert floor to an alpine range in about an hour’s time. It is inspirational.

It’s definitely a change for the better.

*My Choice

Traditional Plate

Images of license plates from

License Plates of the World

Texas Department of Transporation (the highway department)

There's more below the advertisement.
Category: Oil, Texas

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