Florida Sunshine State (AA0 00A)

It appears the Fxx series was skipped. Plates advanced from EZZ to GAA.

This is the new series in the "Sunshine State" design. Sunshine State plates were introduced in 1994 in response to a series of tourist killings, as tourists could be identified by special "LEASE" plates on rental cars. It was earlier reported that Sunshine State plates are now issued to all rental cars, but rental cars have been sighted with county name plates as well. Each of the other counties is also issued some Sunshine State plates to mix in with their standard county name plates. This is done to make it more difficult to identify rental cars; however, rental cars have a slightly different sticker, more or less defeating the purpose of this security measure. These plates are also issued as the only passenger series in Miami-Dade County (the largest in Florida), which is the only county that doesn't issue county name plates. This series started at P00 0AA (Phil reports P17 2AA). The Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, and Y series followed.

Wider dies on this base began after W50 3CM. After the Y series, a new format began since the Z series was not used.

The high for the X series is X26 8ZZ. Phil reports X40 3BC with narrow dies, which is odd because wider dies started in the W series, as noted above.

The series range in the new format for Sunshine State bases is 000 HAA - 999 LZZ, then 000 VAA to 999 ZZZ, then 000 TAA to 999 TZZ. T series followed X and Y series. No Z series plates ever appeared.

The new series mentioned above follows 999 TZZ.

Note: JDX reports that regular Sunshine State plates in the YGF series are being used on unmarked police cars.

Sunshine State series changed from brown stem to green stem somewhere between 488 WYM and 145 XBR.

New format low - AAB Z23