Senseless Vanity

I don’t know what the actual percentage is, but I’d guess about half of the cars I see on the road around here have vanity license plates. The plates might have names, initials, clever sayings, plays on words, religious messages, nods to favorite sports teams, indicators of occupation and even the occasional double ententre that gets by the censors. All those make perfect sense as expressions of individuality. But there is one genre of vanity plates I see sometimes that I just don’t understand: the make or manufacturer of the car.

Just this morning I saw a plate with “SUBARU 9” on it. The car, of course, was a Subaru. It said so in big letters (bigger than those on the license plate) on the back of the car. So what’s the point? You pay extra money to have the kind of car you’re driving on your plate? Why? I do understand doing this for a classic car or if maybe you sell a certain line of vehicles but beyond that, I don’t get it.

Speaking of license plates, why has no one taken up the cause of encouraging everyone in Springfield to have Abe plates? I originally suggested this here. I’d do it but I’m waiting for the city to sweeten the pot with some incentive like free street parking downtown if you have a Lincoln reference on your plate.