British Columbia Passenger License Plates
1973 - 1978

With the successful completion of the first phase of the new format and, in connection with the exhaustion of the series, the province announced the beginning of the second phase in July of 1972. In keeping with the plan outlined in the late 1960s, the new series would extend over five years and would build upon the experience of the 1970-72 series. Not surprisingly, the AAA-000 format was retained - to now begin with the letters LAA, and progressing through to XKK.

1973 - 1975

The license plates continued to be made of a heavy aluminum designed to be more resistant to rust over long durations of time. The choice of dies remained the same, but other cosmetic changes were implemented to improve over the previous design. The decal box, which had been obstructed by trailer hitches and deemed as simply too small, was relocated to the upper-right of the plates - the traditional position of the date stamp during the late 1960s. Another new design change was the removal of the embossed dash to separate the letters from the numbers. There exist, however, a small number of plates that were manufactured with the dash separator (these constitute one of the rarer variations of this base plate).

# of plates Serial Date 0,000,001 to 1,000,000 LAA-000 to XKK-999 circa 73-74 1,000,001 to 2,000,000 LLA-000 to XXK-999 circa 75-77 2,000,001 to 2,400,000 LLL-000 to PXX-999 circa 1978

Big changes regarding the retention of license plates were also announced following the introduction of the new serial. Elected the previous year in the provincial general election, the New Democratic Party (NDP) had campaigned on promise to introduce a compulsory government insurance scheme. One of the first steps in the creation of the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia (ICBC) was the announcement that as of November 24, 1973, all drivers would be required to keep their license plates when they bought, sold or traded their vehicle. Previously, motorists had retained their plates for as long as they owned a particular vehicle - once a vehicle was sold, the plates remained with it. Under the new scheme, effective March 1, 1974 (immediately after year-end renewals), insurance was to be obtained when plates were purchased or renewed from the MVB, or newly accredited ICBC Autoplan brokers. By attaching plates to the person, and not the vehicle, the lines of communication and paperwork between the MVB and ICBC were to be simplified. In conjunction with this change, ICBC also introduced the first temporary testing permits in September of 1974 that allowed motorists to insure and sell a car for which plates had been removed. Valid for ten days, the temporary plates only cost ten dollars and were to be attached to the windshield.

1976 - 1977

Towards the expiration of this second, and final trial of the alphanumeric format, a whole new die scheme began to appear on plates. Generally issued to new registrants, these distinctive plates were being produced with a narrower die set commonly referred to as "Quebec dies" after the province in which they had been manufactured. Once again possessing an embossed separator dash, these plates were a forbearance of the style to be used on the new "Blue-Base Plates" scheduled for issuance in 1979.

An example of the 1978 British Columbia displaying "Quebec dies" (left) against the 1977 Quebec plate displaying the same dies (right). Note the similarities between the numbers '2' and '3'.

1978 - Die & Dash Variations

Sources Dave Richardson's "British Columbia License Plates 1969-Present", http://www.geocities.com/motorcity/downs/4412/bc.html (November 11, 2001). Dan Howlett, "Decoding British Columbia License Plates", http://www.kasumirecords.com/bcplates/index.htm (October 28, 2001). Victoria Daily Times Newspaper. Vancouver Province Newspaper. Victoria Colonist Newspaper. Vancouver Sun Newspaper.

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