I'm officially an antique car owner

[Ronnie]

The  registration was due for my Reatta so I decided to register it as an antique and get a permanent antique tag for it. Tag + fees was $31.11. It is good for as long as I own the car with NO more yearly registration to deal with.

 

I liked my personalized "Reatta" license plate I previously had on it. I think the antique plate looks a little plain compared to it.

 

I went with the antique tag this year for two reasons. One was because I was paying $60 per year for that license plate and I like the idea of paying NO yearly registration fees in the future. The other reason is  because when I go to the local AACA club tours, meetings, etc. all the other old cars have the antique tags on them.  I'm trying to get my Reatta to fit in with Corvairs, T-Birds and the other older looking cars. Maybe the antique tag will help people recognize that I'm driving an antique too.

 

There are some restrictions on how much you can drive an antique automobile. You can drive all you want on the weekends and go anywhere you want. Through the week you are supposed to limit driving to car shows, tours, etc. but I've been told unofficially by a lot of people that Tennessee law enforcement isn't very strict on people driving antique cars as long as you drive safely. They have better things to do than chase antique cars.

 

Below is the official rules for driving an antique car in Tennessee. I don't intend to abuse the rules but the last paragraph makes it pretty easy to justify driving most anytime you want.

 

Antique Motor Vehicles. Per Tennessee Code Ann. § 55-4-111, a person may register a vehicle as an “antique motor vehicle” providing that certain requirements are satisfied.

 

The vehicle:

• Must be a motor vehicle over twenty-five (25) years old and have a non-modified engine and body

 

• Can be used for participation in, or transportation to and from, club activities, exhibits, tours, parades, and similar uses as a collector’s item

 

• Can only be used for general transportation on Saturday and Sunday, and

 

• Can be used on any day for the purpose of selling, vehicle testing, or obtaining repairs to or doing maintenance on the vehicle.

[kdirk]

Ronnie, that is actually a pretty generous historic vehicle law. Missouri, from my understanding, is more restrictive and supposedly places a yearly mileage limit on the cars use, but may allow for overages related to use in official events (shows, parades etc.). What is unclear to me is how they enforce it, as like TN, there is no further annual registration once it has historic plates. I'm tempted to get historic plates on at least one or two of mine, but worry about the annual mileage limit.

 

I need to download the actual MO rules for this and see if I can make it work without hassles. Also need to see about year of manufacture plates, in 1988 MO used white on red plates which would look much nicer on my cars than the current color scheme in use.

 

KD

[Ronnie]

I asked about a mileage limit at the clerks office and they told me there is none. With all the loop holes in the rules I think I can drive as much as I normally do without problems. If I was using my Reatta as a daily driver it might be a problem. I have mileage limits on my Hagerty classic car insurance that would keep me from using it as a daily driver anyway.

 

I was told I can use a 1988 Tennessee plate on my car if I find one I like somewhere like eBay. The '88 plates weren't as good looking as some of the other years so I may stick with the antique plate. If I decide to change the plate it will only cost a $4.00 fee to make the change to reflect the new tag on my registration papers. I asked if I could use the "Reatta" plate I had on my car up until now as an antique tag and was told that was not allowed. It has to be a Tennessee issued vintage '88 plate. No other years of issue are allowed.

[DAVES89]

This is an interesting topic. The Red and the 'vert have the same number but the 'vert has an "A" as it is the second car I own with the same number. In Wisconsin they use the term "Collecter". I had to send pictures [inside/outside and engine] of the 'vert so they could se if it was a beater or not.

I have unrestricted use of the car [24/7 unlimited miles] but only for 11 months. If I need to drive the car in February I need to buy a temporary plate. The Black [my winter Reatta] has regular plates. The fee for Collector plates [at the time] was a one time chrage of $40.00.

One other rule is that I have to have at least one other car in my name. That's easy as all of my cars including my wife's 2010 Buick Enclave is in my name.

Helps make this madness I have of Reatta ownership a bit cheaper to medicate...

[Frogware]

Yeah Utah antique requirements suck! the vehicle must be at least 30 years old & require an annual registration fee of $45. Below is the excerpt from the law book.

 

Under the new law, “vintage vehicles” 30 – 40 years old would be charged a $45 annual registration fee. When the vehicle reaches 40 years old, the registrant would pay a one-time $40 fee. Vintage vehicles are exempted from annual emissions and safety inspections. Utah exempts vehicles manufactured prior to 1968 from emissions inspections.

 

Looks like I have 3 years left before my girls are "VINTAGE"

[Ronnie]

Here in Tennessee we only have 6 counties out of 95 that require emissions testing so I didn't even consider that as a benefit of owning an antique vehicle. I've never had to have a vehicle tested for emissions. The only time a car in my area is tested for safety is when you go for a drivers license test and then it only a simple test of lights, horn, loud muffler, ect.

 

We still fall under federal emissions laws but the only testing I'm aware of in my area is muffler shops are checked to see if they are removing catalytic converters and replacing them with a straight pipes.

 

Do you have to pass emissions tests with your collector cars Dave?

[kdirk]

In Missouri all pre obd-2 (1995 and older) vehicles are exempt from emissions statewide. 1996 and newer vehicles are required to have emissions testing in the three most populated counties (pretty sure its three). All vehicles statewide - excepting those with historic plates - require safety inspections at the time of tag renewal. Regular plates run one or two years, if an even model year you can get two year plates if renewing in a even year (i.e. a 1988 can get 2 year plates when registered in 2016 for example) and similarly for odd year models/renewal years.

 

From my understanding, in MO, historic plates are one time registration, and get a special plate marked "historic vehicle" that is otherwise similar in color and appearance to the standard issue plates. Not positive but think year of manufacture plates are permitted by special arrangement. I need to look at this, as I probably should get at least one of mine - maybe two - setup that way.

[DAVES89]

There MIGHT be emissions being done in the 5 south eastern metropolitan counties of Wisconsin, but I believe even that is no longer done. We don't have any testing around here.

[Ronnie]

It's funny how little things make a difference....

 

Usually when someone at a car show (or other places for that matter) sees my car the main question they ask is, "What is that?". So I made a flyer to put on the windshield at car shows that tells a little about my Reatta. That way they know what it is without asking.

 

Yesterday I was at a local car show and I got a question from a guy looking at the back of my Reatta. His question was, "Is that really an antique?". I guess he missed the "1988" printed in one inch tall letters on the flyer on the windshield. :)

[kdirk]

The interesting thing about the Reatta styling is that save for the popup headlamps (which are a very '80s relic) it looks much like a contemporary car. Maybe it was way ahead of its time style wise, or maybe it is just timeless. I look at it and it doesn't strike me as an 80's car particularly, and while it was built into the early 90's, the bulk of the design and development took place even earlier, around 85-87. Compare into all the boxy looking badge engineered stuff GM was cranking out at the time, and it looks even more out of place for the era, in relative terms.

 

The closest mainstream car with truly unique styling about that time was the Ford Taurus, which was really different and fresh when it debuted. The Mercury Sable even more so, as it was the first car I ever saw with full digital instrumentation, an uncle had one about 86 or 87. I felt like I was looking at the future when I saw it. Almost everything else was kind of tired and warmed over late 70's and early 80's looking stuff with minor updates still, or radically downsized FWD post energy crisis stuff like the 1985 GM lineup, of which the Reatta was a part. And yet, the Reatta was the best executed in aesthetics (along with the Allante) of just about anything GM did in that timeframe. I think the Riviera and Toronado 86-92 were nice looking - if not very inspiring - cars, but outside of that almost everything else looked old, weird or cheap to me. The Cadillacs looked terrible after the 85 redesign and didn't start to come around again until the early 90's (last generation Eldo body style came out in 92, a decent looking Deville didn't hit again until 91, and the 94 redesign was better still). I won't even talk about the Cimarron.

 

The Pontiac lineup was not so great, the Bonneville was ok but a bit odd in the back, and the mid 80's Gran Prix and Grand Am were kind of cheap looking with all the plastic cladding and try hard styling. These got better into the 90's but it took a few years for them to regain some styling mojo. The Fiero had great potential, but was killed much to soon and never had a chance to hit its stride. Outside of the Corvette and Monte Carlo, Chevy was all boring boxes on four wheels. Even when the Caprice Classic got the jelly bean treatment in 91 or so (and I still don't like to this day) which broke that mold, Chevy still didn't have anything that interested me in the least.

 

Anyway that was a lot of needless typing to get to my point that the Reatta's styling defies its age, and it is difficult for me to say exactly why. I touched on some reasons above but don't think it is just one thing that can be pointed to as causing that "hard to place" effect. Then too, if you have one that is really clean (not a beater) with good paint and nice wheels, because of the rarity of them, I can see people who know nothing about it thinking it is a recently released model that is just starting to show up on the roads, and not a 30 year old car. This is amplified by the fact that very few people take really nice care of (or restore) a car in this age range. The cutoff for restorations of old cars for most collectors seems to be stuck in the 70's still, anything newer (with some notable exceptions, mostly high end stuff) is still too recent - or common - to matter. Which is to say that most people will expect to see an 80's/90's car in rough shape in 2017, not one that has been meticulously maintained or even partly restored. Therefore, when they do see one, their first thought is that is just be a more recently made model.

[DAVES89]

Kevin I agree with pretty much everything you say except for your comment about the Allenta. It was a cool car back in the day but I don't think the looks have held up as well as the Reatta has. There is a stripped Allante at Gibson's that I walk by every so often. It's interior [and top] is mostly gone but the body panels are still there and I just don't see the attraction like I do with a Reatta, but then again I recognize that I am biased...

[kdirk]

You know, the Allante has grown on me. Clearly, I share the same bias and much prefer the Reatta, which has a better interior and instrumentation though still admittedly dated in appearance. The Allante is almost the anti-Reatta as it is distinctly Euro style, very chiseled with many straight lines. I don't like that look nearly as much as the contours of the Reatta, but recognize that it was a big departure from GM styling of the time. And actually it wasn't GM styling. They farmed it out as we all know, which is an incidental - and likely important - part of the Reatta' s development. Truthfully, without the Allante, we may not have gotten the Reatta as it came to be since the GM design studio rendered the Reatta as a consolation prize for losing out on the Allante design to Pinafarina.

 

I see some really clean Allantes around still, and they are standouts. Maybe because they are so unusual, but I do think they are distinctive and decent looking cars. That said, they look dated to me in a way the Reatta doesn't. And yet, they have aged with some class where most 80's GM stuff, including the rest of the Cadillac product line, just looks really poorly executed now. Look at a 85 to 89 Seville, Deville or Eldorado. These are cars that, at best, are plain looking (dressed up with too many baubles to try and compensate) and not nearly up to the standard of being a Cadillac. I'm even less forgiving of these designs, actually, but will hold my most critical distaste for them here.

 

Then too, there was the Brougham (the rear drive boxy D body) which was a carryover - nearly untouched save for some post gas crisis powertrain changes - from the 70's. They beat that horse to death until a last gasp redesign in 1993 which made it look more like a bloated weirdly proportioned version of the 1994 Deville that debuted a year later. While these weren't terrible looking (the boxy one made through 92) they were outdated like a guy who showed up at a new wave dance club in the 80's in a sansabelt leisure suit with gold chains and fishbowl platforms requesting the Commodores. It needed to be redeisgned or put to pasture in about 1980, and yet somehow still got a dozen more years of production in the same body style. Sure, it continued to sell but it was embarassing to have gone on so long.

 

So, of everything GM made from 85-90 roughly (I'm overlooking 80-84 which was largely just riding the final crest of their 70's product line and did have a few genuinely decent looking cars like the big Riviera) only the Reatta, Riviera - which really didn't get right until 89 when they fixed the the goofy flat ass rear end of 86 to 88 - the Toronado (which also had the flat butt but somehow managed to make it work without looking out of place), the Allante and the Fiero were true styling standouts.

 

That's four models out of the entire half decade, and some of those weren't even around for the full five years, as the Allante hit in 87, the Reatta in 88, and the Fiero was gone early. I realize this is subjective, and I know there are a few holdouts who like some of the cars I've ungraciously maligned, but this was a brutally bad era for GM as they were already beat down by the widespread perception of poor build quality from the 70's and now added the double whammy of lousy styling in the mid 80's.

 

And funnily enough, look at which GM cars of this era are granted some semblance of collectability today. The Reatta, Allante, and Fiero are about it save for a determined few who will go to bat for the small Riviera and Toronado. In other words, if you truly like an 87 Eldorado, that's fine, but you're in a real small club. Many of the styling problems were overcome by 92-96 as existing models were updated to be decent enough looking cars. It only took them 7-10 years to finally get some of them right though, and they took a beating for it.

 

So my final verdict is that amongst a field of comparative mediocrity, the Allante is due some respect for being an actual nice car with interesting, if somewhat polarizing looks. Would I feel thst way if nearly all its contemporaries weren't so bad? I don't know. Standing on its own (if I can magically ignore all the aforementioned chaff for a minute) I still kind of like the look of the Allante, but it is much easier to pin it to its era than the Reatta based solely on its appearance.

[Aztec62]

Over here in Germany a car must be at least 30 years old to get the "collectors car" status.

The car must either be in original condition or restored to that condition.

Very little modifications only are acceptable.

Such cars ge a reduction in road tax and are reduced in insurance costs.

They are exempted from emmission testing and do not have to comply with any emmission standards.

And they wear a special license plate with an "H" added for "historic".

 

Have fun,

Henning

[Ronnie]

Henning, I always enjoy your input from the perspective of you being in a different country. Thanks for posting.

[Aztec62]

Well Ronnie, I thought I might add my two cents.

Someone may be interested.

 

By the way, the collectors status regulations are the same nationwide.

[ski.dive]

Collector Car Insurance also saves you BIG BUCKS!!!!