Hawaii license plate: Horseless carriage
Issued today Documented since 2026. Historic plates for car, issued by The four county directors of finance (City and County of Honolulu; County of Hawaiʻi; County of Maui; County of Kauaʻi), acting under HRS chapter 249. One of 7 Hawaii license plates.
Format, years and the law
- Format
-
999, for example959(9 any digit)The format above follows the issuing rules: a registration that fits it is one this series could have issued.
- Years issued
- Documented since 2026; the format is likely older than the first year documented. Still issued.
- Vehicle class
- Historic: vintage/oldtimer regimes (German H, ES historico). Issued for car.
- Size
- 12 × 6 in (305 × 152 mm) · every country's size
- About this plate
- HORSELESS CARRIAGE. THE THIRD "HORSELESS CARRIAGE NO. 1" IN THIS PROGRAMME, Florida § 320.086(1), California VC § 5004 and Hawaii § 249-9(c) all legislate a separate numerical series commencing with exactly that phrase. Three states, three statute books, one sentence shape: that is no longer a coincidence and is worth recording as a probable shared model act for whoever does the L4 historical pass. Hawaii's differs in two ways that matter: it prints 'Permanent' on the plate, and it does not define "antique motor vehicle" at all, which makes its eligibility the least determinate of the three.
- Who can have one
- Contrast Florida's fixed 1945 model-year cutoff and California's fixed 1922 / 16-cylinder-pre-1965 rule.
- How long it is valid
- permanent, 'valid for use on such vehicles so long as the vehicle is in existence in lieu of the uniform state number plates' (§ 249-9(c)). The director may 'discard and allow for new applications of inactive special number plates that have not been assigned or registered during the preceding three years'.
- Fee
- $10, in addition to any other fee applicable to antique motor vehicles (HRS § 249-9(c)).
Legal basis and sources
- § 249-9(c): the $10 permanent antique plate, the 'Horseless Carriage' and 'Permanent' labels, the separate numerical series from No. 1, the three-year inactivity discard https://web.archive.org/web/2024id_/https://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/hrscurrent/Vol04_Ch0201-0257/HRS0249/HRS_0249-0009...
This plate in your app
The series id is us-hi-horseless-carriage. The API returns its format, validation, colours and designs with the rest of Hawaii's series:
curl -s https://vehiclesdb.com/api/v1/plates/us-hi \ -H "Authorization: Bearer $VEHICLESDB_API_KEY" \ | jq '.series[] | select(.id == "us-hi-horseless-carriage")'
- Plate image (SVG, sample serial): https://vehiclesdb.com/plates/us-hi/us-hi-horseless-carriage.svg
- Blank template, filled on your side: https://vehiclesdb.com/plates/us-hi/us-hi-horseless-carriage/template.svg
