70 free License Plate trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
68 free License plate trivia questions with answers. License plates are the most-read documents on Earth and almost nobody knows their history. This quiz covers the whole story: the Paris ordinance of 1893, the leather and porcelain tags of early motoring, wartime fiberboard, and the 1956 deal that fixed the six-by-twelve-inch size still on every North American car. You will meet the state slogans and the fights behind them, from Idaho's 1928 potato to the Supreme Court case over Live Free or Die, plus Delaware's six-figure low-number market, prison plate shops, D.C.'s protest slogan and diplomatic codes. Then it goes abroad: British age identifiers and record auctions, the EU blue band, German city codes and FE-Schrift, and Japan's yellow kei plates. Questions run from easy to expert, so it works for a road trip, a pub round or a collectors' night. Every answer is checked against Wikipedia and primary sources.
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Q 01Which country introduced the first vehicle registration plates, by a Paris ordinance in 1893?
France
Germany followed in 1896, and the Netherlands issued the first national plate, called a driving permit, in 1898.
Q 02Which US state was the first to issue license plates itself, on September 1, 1903?
Massachusetts
Before that, motorists in most states had to make their own plates. Plate number 1 went to Frederick Tudor and is still in use by his descendants.
Q 03Which state was first to require vehicle registration in 1901, initially just the owner's initials?
New York
Owners provided their own plates featuring their initials until 1903 and numbers thereafter; the state did not issue plates until 1910.
Q 04In 1928, which state became the first to put a graphic and slogan on its plates, an embossed potato?
Idaho
That 1928 potato plate was the ancestor of the 'Famous Potatoes' slogan the state still uses today.
Q 05Which state has featured a bucking horse and rider on its plates continuously since 1936?
Wyoming
The cowboy silhouette is one of the longest-running plate graphics in the country, arriving the same year as the oldest continuous state slogan.
Q 06George Maynard was jailed for 15 days in the 1970s for taping over which motto on his plates?
Live Free or Die
Maynard and his wife, Jehovah's Witnesses, found the motto repugnant to their beliefs; the Supreme Court sided with him three years after the first citation.
Q 07The Supreme Court case Wooley v. Maynard, about covering a motto on a plate, concerned which state?
New Hampshire
Since 1970 the state had required noncommercial vehicles to carry plates embossed with its motto; the Court ruled 6-3 that citizens could not be forced to display it.
Q 08In what year did the Supreme Court decide Wooley v. Maynard?
1977
Chief Justice Burger wrote that the state was effectively forcing citizens to use their private property as a 'mobile billboard' for its message.
Q 09Which Chief Justice wrote the majority opinion in Wooley v. Maynard?
Warren Burger
Rehnquist dissented, joined by Blackmun, arguing a bumper sticker disowning the motto would have been enough.
Q 10Which state's standard plate, gold on black, has remained essentially unchanged since the 1960s?
Delaware
It is the oldest plate design still in production in the country, dating to 1959, and the state has not embossed its plates for decades.
Q 11In 2008, plate number 6 from the state famous for its low-digit plate market sold for how much?
$675,000
Only residents with a license from that state can legally own the plates, yet bids came in from around the world; number 20 later fetched $410,000 in 2018.
Q 12In the state whose low-number plates sell for six figures, plate 1 goes to which official?
Governor
Numbers 2 and 3 go to the lieutenant governor and secretary of state; everything from 4 upward can be bought and sold.
Q 13As of 2014, how many US states used prison labor to make their license plates?
40
The federal government does too, which is why 'making license plates' became slang for serving a prison sentence.
Q 21'First in Flight' has appeared on which state's plates since 1982?
North Carolina
A neighbouring state to the north counters with 'Birthplace of Aviation', since the Wright brothers grew up there even though they flew at Kitty Hawk.
Q 22Which slogan has been in continuous use longer than any other, appearing on Maine plates since 1936?
Vacationland
Arizona's 'Grand Canyon State' and Wisconsin's 'America's Dairyland' both arrived a few years later, in 1940.
Q 23Since 1954, Illinois plates have carried which slogan?
Land of Lincoln
Later Illinois plates put Abraham Lincoln himself on the background, and the 2017 redesign moved his face to the far left edge.
Q 14Which of these states has required only a rear plate on standard passenger cars since 1952?
Pennsylvania
Front plates are still required there on state-owned vehicles and, oddly, on cars owned by press photographers.
Q 15Which state dropped front plates in July 2020, going without them for the first time since World War II?
Ohio
The change was passed by the state legislature in April 2019 and took effect the following summer.
Q 16Which state's governor rejected 9,000 pairs of 1972 plates because the flag used dots instead of stars?
Alaska
William Egan's rejected prototypes are now common finds among collectors, and their design elements were reused on later plates.
Q 17Which state's plates carry the slogan 'Sportsman's Paradise'?
Louisiana
The 1958 plate actually read 'Sportsmen's Paradise' before the spelling settled down the following year.
Q 18'Land of Enchantment' first appeared on which state's plates in 1941, alongside a Zia sun symbol?
New Mexico
That state is also the only one to print 'USA' on its plates, to stop people confusing it with the country next door.
Q 19Which is the only state that prints 'USA' on its license plates?
New Mexico
The addition is there to avoid confusion with the country of Mexico, which the state borders to the southwest.
Q 20'Greatest Snow on Earth' is a plate slogan of which state?
Utah
Its 1985 skier plate won the license plate collectors' association 'Plate of the Year' for 1986, the only time the state has been so honored.
Q 24To conserve metal during World War II, Illinois made its 1943 plates from what material?
Fiberboard
The wood-based boards were used through 1948, three years after the war ended, before the state went back to steel in 1949.
Q 25Which food crop was pressed into experimental plates during wartime shortages?
Soybeans
The earliest plates were enamel on metal or ceramic, so fragile that very few survive today.
Q 26Most modern plates are made from which metal?
Aluminium
Characters are either embossed between dies in a press or, more rarely, riveted onto the plate one by one.
Q 27In 1956, North American passenger plates were standardized at what size?
6 by 12 inches
Only Greenland and Saint Pierre and Miquelon in North America use European sizes instead, though one Canadian territory cuts its standard rectangle into an animal shape.
Q 28Which Canadian territory issues plates cut into the shape of a polar bear?
Northwest Territories
The bear is cut out of a standard rectangular blank so it still fits normal mounting holes.
Q 29Which is the only US state whose licence plate number is pressed in rather than raised?
Vermont
Its characters are engraved into a large, slightly raised portion of the plate, the reverse of the usual embossing.
Q 30Which California city piloted battery-powered digital license plates in 2018?
Sacramento
The plates carry a beacon that can be tracked if the car is stolen, and Michigan legalized electronic plates the same year.