New Alabama License Plate

A friend in the SCV writes:

"Camp members have complained about what they thought was the new Alabama SCV tag. I haven't seen one but I am told it uses some kind of ugly crayon font to spell out ALABAMA. I just spoke with Ronnie Simmons who heads up our tag program. Ronnie tells me this is the new generic tag. Same blank tag with stickers that we have been using. (as well as other groups) The state just decided to use an ugly font (who knows why?) Ronnie tells me THIS IS NOT THE NEW ALABAMA SCV TAG. Our new tag has not been produced yet. Hopefully, it will go into production this fall. Leave it to the state to screw up something simple."

Here is an image of the new generic tag:



When people shell out more money for specialty tags a portion goes to the state and part to the organisation. Sometimes I suspect that the state produces an ugly regular tag design to induce people to buy the specialty tags. The state designers seem to really like tags that look like they were designed by kindergarteners or monkeys with crayons.

Here is the current generic tag for the SCV:



And finally, here is my favourite Alabama regular tag, from back inthe 1970's:



It had everything you could want: "Heart of Dixie," an image of the Alabama Capitol building, the name of the county, and the state flag.

Here is a good website with images of more old Alabama plates. Here is a chronological history in photos of Alabama's plates. The pre-'77 plates are pretty austere.