You don’t see many XK’s with a front license plate. My brother once mused that he might very well be the only one to have one. But it is the law in California, and the XK8 is now legal.
Aesthetics, Airflow, & Aerodynamics
I don’t think the nose of the XK8/XKR was designed with the US style license plate in mind. The car looks much better with the short and wide European style license plate. The theme, lifted from the E-Type of the 60s, almost asks for the license number to be painted on the smooth surface just over the air intake, rather than mar the lines of the car with plate affixed to the bumper.
Many XK owners prefer their cars without a front license plate. But, in California at least, this once often ignored infraction is being cracked down on.
I didn’t remove mine. The law stipulates that dealers must include a front license bracket on any vehicle they sell or lease. But I acquired the XK8 from a private seller who had previously removed the license plate and bracket. More specifically, he had had the nose repainted and the bumper replaced or refinished and no bracket had been attached since.
After two years of driving the car around without giving it a thought, I was pulled over and issued a fix it ticket for the missing front license plate.
Changing Times?
Apparently there was a day when it was very rare that anyone would be pulled over for a missing front license plate (it’s really the back one that counts in most situations where you need to note a license plate). In those good old days, you’d only get issued a fix it ticket for this if you were pulled over for some other infraction. I asked around and several people suggested it was likely a result of a quota not quite met (it was the end of the month). But as I dug further it seemed that there has been an uptick in front license plate tickets that implies a change in policy rather than a cyclical need to issue more tickets. Those paying attention to the details suspect a correlation with the increase in traffic violation intersection cameras (the ones that take a picture of red-light runners). This correlation makes sense to me.
Complying with the Law
I ordered a license plate bracket which is just a piece of plastic and comes with no hardware. I probably could have gotten it cheaper and with hardware from Jaguar Haven, the Jaguar dismantler in Stockton, but it was just too easy to click-to-purchase and be done with it. So I picked up some self-tapping screws and plate fastenting screws/bolts at the local auto parts shop (and yes, could have gotten them cheaper too at a hardware store, but I also needed some power steering fluid… that’s for another article).
The pictures pretty much tell the story of attaching the bracket and license plate. NOTE: the 1 1/4 self-tapping screws were too long and hit the metal inside the polycarbonate overrider covers; I had to go back for 1/2 length screws and even those are a bit too long; but now you know so you don’t have to make the same mistake.
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