Northwest Iowa — If you’re looking for that perfect gift for Christmas, you might consider one of the hottest selling items of the year on Iowa cars and trucks. The blackout license plates went on sale in July and have proved to be very popular.
Iowa D-O-T Vehicle Services Manager, Daniel Yeh says they have been able to adjust the production run of the regular plates to meet the demand.
The blackout plates become the top-selling specialty plate by mid-October. The blackout plates started when the standard number series that began with the letter I — and quickly moved through those letter combinations.
The next series of plates will start with the letter J. He says they do occasionally have to make adjustments in the number sequence for specialized plate requests.
He is glad they have the computer to keep track of the many variations of plates.
Sales of the blackout plates topped 46-thousand through mid-October to pull ahead of the black and gold University of Iowa plates as the best selling specialty license plate.
Around northwest Iowa, the plates are also very popular, according to county treasurers’ offices. In Lyon, O’Brien, Osceola, and Sioux counties, they confirm that they are the most popular specialty plate now. In the counties that had available figures, they are issuing roughly about one-fourth as many blackout plates as standard plates. Of course, there are still many other kinds of specialty plates also available.
County treasurers’ office officials tell us that many people are replacing their current plates with the blackout plates. In fact, in Sioux County, they tell us that one day, they went through a half a box of 50 blackout plates, which is all but unheard-of.
If you’re interested in the white writing on black background plates, you can find out more by contacting the motor vehicle department of your treasurer’s office.
