front license plate mounting

[1949 p17]

we are finally going to put the 49 plymouth p17 on the road. our state requires a front license plate. we are not going to drill holes in a one year only ribbed bumper. we looked on line and see vintage cars velcro the license plate on. may we need to make a bracket that attaches from behind the bumper. what is your solution?

[Ivan_B]

What's the problem of using OEM setup? If the OEM was a drill-through, and your car was not drilled, just use a bracket that attaches to the bumper bracket underneath, from the earlier models, like this.

[Eneto-55]

My 49 P15 came from a state that required a front plate, and it has a sort of clamp on system that hooks over the top & bottom edges of the bumper, then the tag is attached to that.  (On our 2009 Dodge Journey, which came from Florida, I used pull-ties to hold it in place.  (Ohio discontinued the requirement for the front tag a couple years ago.  But already a fair number of people didn't mount the front one, even though it was the law.  My niece's husband has some sort of Camaro or something that he considers a collector car, and he never put one on.)

[Eneto-55]

I looked at the license plate mount this afternoon, and tried to get the old plate off to be able to get a decent picture.  It isn't quite as I remembered.  The center (vertical) bracket hooks under the bumper, and the center bumper bolt passes through it, securing it to the bumper.  Then there is a horizontal c channel bracket fixed to it (welded?), with long slots, to accommodate various mounting points for the different shapes of license tags used during that era.

 

This is the best I could do, as the tag mounting bolts are rusted fast, and just turn on the back side.  (I could have broken the tag off, but didn't want to ruin such a perfect license plate....   )

Edited April 10 by Eneto-55
spelling error

[DJ194950]

Totally  repairable by most!  🤔

 

DJ

[1949 p17]

2 hours ago, Eneto-55 said:

I looked at the license plate mount this afternoon, and tried to get the old plate off to be able to get a decent picture.  It isn't quite as I remembered.  The center (vertical) bracket hooks under the bumper, and the center bumper bolt passes through it, securing it to the bumper.  Then there is a horizontal c channel bracket fixed to it (welded?), with long slots, to accommodate various mounting points for the different shapes of license tags used during that era.

 

This is the best I could do, as the tag mounting bolts are rusted fast, and just turn on the back side.  (I could have broken the tag off, but didn't want to ruin such a perfect license plate....   )

thank you very much for the picture. we know how to make a bracket  like the one in the picture.

[andyd]

My 40 Dodge as does all Oz cars has to use both front & rear licence or what we call number plates.....my car uses the original 1940 brackets that fit on both sides of the bumper dumb irons and are clamped with the dumb iron between them and fixed with a bolt on top of & at the bottom of where the dumb iron is.............then a stamped steel cross bracket is factory welded onto the dumb iron clamp and the number plate bolted onto this cross bracket........you can just  see this clamp underneath the lower edge of the number plate.

The rear plate attaches to the factory cross bracket which bolts onto the factory triangular mount on the trunk lid...........andyd 

[Sniper]

Hmm, looking at Andy's post I see something that might work

 

Yeah, it's listed as a fog light bracket, but it looks like it would clamp to those bumper brackets and a piece of angle iron bolted to the top would let you mount a plate?

 

No, I wasn't looking for anything like this, I was looking for add on fog lights, lol.

Edited April 11 by Sniper

[Ivan_B]

Andy's brackets look like the ones on my car as well (and similar to what's available on eBay for $20).

Edited April 11 by Ivan_B

[Dan Hiebert]

The factory front plate mount for our D24 is similar to what Eneto-55 shows.  It clamps onto the front of the bumper via one of the bumper bolts.  Which just happens to be in the center of the bumper.  For consideration, Maine requires two license plates, too, but allows for the use year-of-manufacture plates for antique cars.  Maine only issued one license plate in 1948, so it is legal for us to display only the rear 1948 plate.  The car does have to be registered as an antique, though.  Might that work in Idaho?   

[1949 p17]

we made the license plate holder. thank you for your help.

[Dan Hiebert]

I like the mounting on the rear of the bumper.  It looks slicker than the factory mount on our car.