Front License Bracket
 

Has anyone seen any way to mount front license plates somewhere other than in the middle of the front grill? It totally detracts from the car. Minor complaint, but I didn't realize where the front plles went until I picked it up last night.

Two things.

Do a search on here.

There is no other feasible way to do this at present. If you mount it low, it's too low, otherwise if you mount it any place elsem you would have to drill into your bumper and I'm not sure if anyone would want to do that to their RX-8. We have tried photo shopping looks and places and even fantasizing about how and where. I have personally tried to stealth it with no luck as of yet but I am still thinking and planning. There is not one person on here who likes the plate on the front. You could be a rebel and just not do it and hope for the better of not getting pulled over for it. Some of the Forum members have been lucky and successful in not mounting a front plate and have not been pulled over yet.

If you come up with a way, we would ALL love to see it.

I just removed the bracket and attached the plate directly into the plastic grille with two screws. It's not a perfect solution, but it's definitely a lot cleaner than with the bracket. I'm working on a better solution in my head but haven't had a chance to work on it.

There's a guy on here who rigged up a bracket that comes up from under the bottom of the air dam/bottom plastic thingy in the front. It looks SO much better. He has pictures in his posts showing how to do it.

Most recent threads...

Front License Plate

Photoshop Request... Front License Plate Bracket

I noticed that my state's law would seem to allow one to hang the plate inside the car so long as it was anchored to the vehicle, did not obstruct the driver's view and was visible from the front, but I don't think that's an improvement.

Best solution I could come up with, mount low, cut sides of supplied plastic holder, added thick black frame over plate to reduce visible (non-black) profile.

Would painting the lower half of the frame red help or just make it look ridiculous?

It's something I hadn't thought off, might look kinda strange(?) I might try it with some red paper!

Hmm - Spin9k's solution puts the plate in the air-flow path, while the stock location does not.

My solution is to simply remove it, and take my chances. 3 months so far, so good.

Go stand (sit) nose to nose w/your 8. Only the lower bottom 1/2 of the main grill is open. The plate installed in the stock position covers exactly the same area of the open area in the grill. The only dif is stock the bottom of the plate covers, in mine the top of the plate covers. So no dif as far as I can tell. :)

Also the main radiator flow is underneath the plate anyway.

I went to Home Depot and bought a 36 inch strip of 1 3/8's metal strap, with holes drilled in it the entire length. I found a hole in the frame near the top of the radiator to bolt the strap to. I then spent about an hour slowly bending the strap into shape so that it comes out through the bottom of the front bumper, next to the rotary symbol. From where it extends out of the front bumper, I bent it 90 degrees upwards. I drilled a hole in the center of the plate mounting bracket and bolted it to the strap using a flat head screw so it would not interfere with the plate mounting onto the bracket. I then took adhesive velcro and placed a strip on the metal strap and adhered it to the bottom of the bumper. Effectively the strap is bolted to the car frame, descends down and out the front of the bumper and the Velcor adheres it to the bumper itself. It seems to be holding up well. I did this on the drivers side of the car. The plate is far enough removed from the front of the bumper that I don't think it will interfere with air flow into the radiator. The bottom of the mounting bracket is in line with the very bottom of the bumper, what we used to refer to as the gravel pan. It looks a whole lot better than the center grill mounting. It takes some time and care not to scratch any of the plastic body parts. Tightening the bolt near the radiator is a blind operation, but it can be done. Only time will tell how well the asssembly will hold up. Let me know if anyone finds a cleaner solution.

Plate
 

Glad in Pa. we need no front plate.
ers

Can you post a picture of this?

Give me a day or two, I will post the picture.