License plates from the world of film and TV

Films and television shows often feature vehicles, most of which will be displaying a license plate, however some of these have some special significance, or become icons in their own right due to the cult status of the film or show. Let’s take a look at some…

If you’re a fan of classic 80s films you might remember the plate NRVOUS on the red Ferrari in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. From the same era there was also ECTO-1 a New York plate featuring in the film Ghostbusters. Yet another famous plate from the 80s is that from the famous time-machine DeLorean  – OUTATIME.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang featured two memorable number plates. The actual Chitty Chitty Bang Bang car had the plate GEN 11. Interestingly this is a street legal car and is still around today with the same plate. Truly’s car in the film has the plate CUB 1 which is reference to the producer Albert R. Broccoli’s nickname ‘Cubby’.

The toy story series of films has plenty of interesting number plates. In the first film you’ll see the plate HAL9000, a reference to the computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey, and also MOLY1K9 which is a tribute to a dog belonging to one of the production team. In the second film you can spot the plate A113. This code features in all Pixar films and is a reference to room 113 in the Cal Arts College where many of the Pixar team did their training.

Photo credit: By André Koehne [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons