This answer to this week’s puzzler about the distance between the license plate bolt holes being unchanged since Karl Benz was in diapers was so wrong that it’s almost painful. While the eighteen wheeler fuel tank issue required some advanced math that frankly was beyond me, this one is so easy to debunk that it defies the imagination.
All I needed was a yardstick and two old license plates from my garage wall. Submitted for your approval…
http://i86…G_1992.jpg
http://i86…G_1992.jpg
I promise: the links will work this time!
What rankles even more that similar small plates were also issued in Click and Clack’s fair state. Case closed.
My 1947 Pontiac had slots in the front bumper where the license plate was to be mounted if the state required a front plate. If all license plates had the same distance between the holes, there would have been holes instead of the slots.
I remember that Tennessee in the late 1940’s and into the early 1950’s had a licnese plates in the shape of the state. However, I don’t know if the spacing of the holes was different than other states.
Agreed; it’s bogus. I’ve never been able to put bolts in all four holes of my plates and in all four holes of the frame, because either one set or the other (or more often both) don’t line up with the holes in the mounting.