New Mexico license plate: Horseless carriage
Issued today Documented since 2026. Historic plates for car, issued by New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Department, Motor Vehicle Division (MVD). One of 8 New Mexico license plates.
Format, years and the law
- Format
-
999999, for example637059(9 any digit)The format above is broad: a registration that fits it has the right shape, which does not show that this series issued it.
- 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.
- About this plate
- HORSELESS CARRIAGE. Included despite having no sourced format because the ELIGIBILITY RULE is the fact worth having: a five-year revalidation cycle on a historic plate is unusual (Florida's equivalent is permanent, "valid for use without renewal so long as the vehicle is in existence"), and a rolling 35-year threshold silently changes the eligible fleet every year in a way a fixed cutoff never does. The format gap is recorded, not papered over.
- Who can have one
- "A 'horseless carriage' is a motor vehicle at least 35 years old, owned as a collector's item, and used solely for exhibition and educational purposes" (MVD, citing NMSA 1978 § 66-3-27). A ROLLING 35-year threshold with a USE RESTRICTION, contrast Florida's fixed 1945 model-year cutoff for its horseless carriage plate and its rolling 30-year antique threshold, and New Mexico's own 30-year year-of-manufacture threshold in the entry above. Three different thresholds in two states, and New Mexico runs two of them side by side.
- How long it is valid
- the plate remains with the vehicle on transfer of ownership; it must be REVALIDATED EVERY FIVE YEARS, $17.50 initially, then $7.50 every five years
Legal basis and sources
- New Mexico MVD on horseless carriage plates, citing Motor Vehicle Code Section 66-3-27 NMSA 1978: the 35-year rolling threshold, the collector's-item and exhibition/educational-use conditions, the... https://www.mvd.newmexico.gov/vehicles/license-plates/
This plate in your app
The series id is us-nm-horseless-carriage. The API returns its format, validation, colours and designs with the rest of New Mexico's series:
curl -s https://vehiclesdb.com/api/v1/plates/us-nm \ -H "Authorization: Bearer $VEHICLESDB_API_KEY" \ | jq '.series[] | select(.id == "us-nm-horseless-carriage")'
- Plate image (SVG, sample serial): https://vehiclesdb.com/plates/us-nm/us-nm-horseless-carriage.svg
- Blank template, filled on your side: https://vehiclesdb.com/plates/us-nm/us-nm-horseless-carriage/template.svg
