Alberta License Plates & Collector Vehicles

351CFalcon

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From the SVAA February 2021 newsletter.

The Collector Car Insurance industry has four classes of Collector Vehicles:
1. Antique or Collector Vehicles (25 years or older) Must be manufactured at least 25 years ago
2. Modified, Street Rod or Custom Vehicles (15 years or older) Vehicles that are at least 15 years old and have been customized from their original manufactured state for the purposes of appearance and/or enhanced performance.
3. Special Interest Vehicles (0-24 years) Limited or late model production vehicles that are less than 24 years old with factory-special or limited-edition packages or rare factory options that are considered collectible, and with annual production of not more than 25,000 units.
4. Exotic Vehicles (0-14 years) Vehicles manufactured within the last 14 years that feature cutting-edge design, technology or performance and have an annual production of 300 or less. These vehicles have not been altered from their original manufactured state.

How to register and license a Collector Vehicle in Alberta
In Alberta, the Traffic Act 320/2002 allows the collector to register and license the "collector car" in the following ways:
1. All collector cars can be registered as a regular passenger vehicle and can be plated with a regular Class 3 plate, personalized or vanity plate, support our troops plate and veterans plate for a military veterans.

2. If the car is 25 years or older and only operated as a collector's item in exhibitions, club activities, parades and transportation to and from these activities and to and from having repairs or maintenance work done, the vehicle can be registered as an Antique and run Antique plates.
An exception to this is when an antique vehicle owner has the cloth registration and its corresponding vintage (YOM) license plate (issued prior to September 1984), the license plates are valid until the vehicle changes ownership.

3. If the vehicle is registered as an Antique and was manufactured before 1974, the vehicle can be plated with Vintage of Year of Manufacture (YOM) plate.
In order to do this, YOM plate number must be recorded on the vehicles registration by an Alberta Registries agent.

For Option 3, the Registries agent will issue Antiques plate.
It is the owners choice to use the Antique plate or the vehicles registered YOM plate. It should be noted that when using YOM plates on your collector car the the number of the plate will NOT register on a police officer's computer as it is not a discrete number.
You may be pulled over to allow the officer to confirm you registration.
If you are using a YOM plate, it is STRONGLY recommended that you carry the Antique plate in the vehicle at all times to confirm the registration.

Please note if travelling out of Canada with your Collector vehicle and want to minimize the time with the border Crossing officers, it is STRONGLY recommend to have the Antique plate on (not in) the vehicle at the Border Crossing.

This information on Collectors Car registration and plates was confirmed by AMA registries in January 2021.
 
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