Remembering Arizona's oh-so-flimsy 1947 license plate

When an ADOT Communications colleague had the chance to photograph historic license plates kept by the Arizona Capitol Museum, one stuck out as being in particularly bad shape. 

Torn savagely at bottom right corner, possibly repaired at the bottom left corner and featuring what appear to be additional holes punched for some reason, the 1947 license plate looks like it was made from glorified aluminum foil. 

That's because it was made from glorified aluminim foil. 

The story stems from post-World War Two shortages of many things, including the steel that had been used to make a new Arizona license plate every year. The State Highway Department wasn't even able to make a 1946 plate, instead issuing windshield stickers to validate the 1945 plates. So Arizonans were understandably excited that a thin, "hammerable" aluminum plate was coming for 1947.

That excitement lasted until the plate arrived. 

"Someone played a dirty trick on Arizona automobile owners and many of those nice shiny 1947 aluminum license plates bear a beat-up look," The Arizona Republic reported on Jan. 6 of that year, shortly after the plates came out. 

While holes on previous plates had wiggle room to accommodate different vehicles, these had "only dinky holes at the far corners" and instructions to fasten them onto the 1945 plate for stability. That left owners to do surgery by punching additional holes where they were needed. Fortunately (and unfortunately), the plates were plenty thin to accommodate such modification, at least until the hole turned into a tear. 

The Tucson Daily Citizen introduced the plate's weaknesses with a snarky story detailing one motorist's contortions to get his plate to stay on, first by mistakenly removing the 1945 plate and then by installing eight bolts, nuts, flat washers and lock washers to affix it to the previous plate. Questioning whether Pima County had enough hardware to install of its motorists' 1947 plates, the newspaper pondered, "Perhaps the old reliable baling wire will come into use." 

Things got better for 1948, when the State Highway Department procured thicker aluminum. The Arizona Republic's caption on a photo showing the 1948 plate simply began: "Hooray!"