Vehicle License Plates
Vehicle license plates are introduced in Grand Theft Auto III with the player's ability to explore in a three-dimensional environment making plates viewable. The feature has very little use aside from cosmetic purposes.
Description
License plates in GTA III and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City are static textures, with all plates in GTA III reading LC R29. In GTA Vice City there are a few different variants of plates, including a Florida one, however all of them are illegible.
License plates are dynamic in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, generating a random 7 character number in the format AB12 3CD, divided into groups of four and three characters. Each of the three major cities in San Andreas have their own plates and some vehicles have their own custom license numbers. Note, however, that during a session of play, all cars of the same model will have the same number plate (for example, all Landstalkers will have the same plates). These will change if a new session of play is started, even if stored in a garage.
For Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories, license plates in both games feature a "LC" (Liberty City) and "VC" (Vice City) prefix, respectively, followed by a four-digit number. While still more varied than in GTA III and GTA Vice City, the games only offer a limited number of license numbers, with each of them specific to certain vehicles models.
In Grand Theft Auto IV, license plates do not have an actual letter-number combination. Every vehicle that has a license plate has "LIBERTY CITY" in large blue capital letters, with the exception of the immovable trailers found ingame, which all bear the registration "ON-10N EC". Beneath the registration name is "Liberty City State". These license plates are based directly on current New York license plates, as seen here. It is possible that the plates were intended to have a letter-number combination, much like the vehicles in GTA San Andreas.
The license plates in Grand Theft Auto V are registered in the state of San Andreas and come in five varieties modelled after the designs of various Californian baseplates: yellow on black (like those used from 1963 to 1969), yellow on blue (like those used from 1969 to 1982), blue on white with the state name in red block capitals over faint yellow stripes (like those used from 1982 to 1987), blue on white with the state name in red italics (like those used from 1994 to the present day), and blue on white with "SA EXEMPT" in red, reserved for emergency vehicles. A sixth variety, similar to the 1982-1987 plates but with a more colourful background, is seen in the game's first trailer, but doesn't appear in the final game. A seventh plate is exclusive to the Pigalle - the plate is in a European style, with the Lampadati logo to the left. The plate numbers are dynamic, following an eight-character format that consists of a two-digit numbers followed by three letters and a three-digit number (i.e. "12ABC123"), similar to the format used on Californian plates since 1980 ("1ABC123"). The player can create custom vanity plate numbers via the iFruit app.
Custom plates
Custom plates are typically vanity plates featured on special vehicles, such as vehicles belonging to certain individuals or custom vehicles. Such plates has been seen in use in both GTA Vice City and GTA San Andreas, but for the latter, they cannot be saved in garages as they will simply revert to a usual seven digit plate. Protagonist plates in GTA V and GTA Online can be customized via the iFruit mobile companion app only once, but the customized plate can be given to any owned vehicle.
Gallery
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The license plate in GTA III. A handful of vehicles, such as the Landstalker, still feature this plate in GTA Vice City.
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The "Floridian" plate in GTA Vice City, common on most road vehicles.
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The unadorned Vice City plate in GTA Vice City, used on most industrial vehicles and low-grade vehicles.
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A Los Santos plate in GTA San Andreas.
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A San Fierro plate in GTA San Andreas.
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A Las Venturas plate in GTA San Andreas.
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A license plate in GTA Liberty City Stories.
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A license plate in GTA Vice City Stories.
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An unassigned "Liberty City State" license plate in a pre-release screenshot for GTA IV.
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The unnumbered license plate used on road vehicles in GTA IV.
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The numbered license plate used on trailers in GTA IV.
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A "San Andreas" plate as seen in the first trailer for GTA V, the design of which does not feature in the final game.
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A black plate in GTA V.
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A blue plate in GTA V.
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A white plate with block capital font and faint yellow lines in GTA V.
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A white plate with italic font in GTA V.
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An "SA EXEMPT" plate, reserved for emergency vehicles in GTA V.
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The unique plate of the Pigalle.
See also