“Why Nagano?”
Good question, to which I lamely replied, “Because.” There really wasn’t much else I could say, to be fair. Now, I get what my wife was getting at – I had lived in both Sapporo and Osaka, so why not one of the cities I had actual ties with? Unfortunately, eBay doesn’t really care and so I had to pick what was available, which was Nagano, but let’s back up a bit first.
For the record, it took five months for my BRZ to reach me after being ordered in early December, 2021. Considering the current world situation with logistics, materials, and workforce, that’s not bad in my book and only moderately longer than what it would have been under ideal conditions. Sill, it’s a fair amount of time to wait and so like any expectant parent, I started to research and buy items I’d “need” for when my BRZ finally arrived. And one of the first things I bought was the replica JDM license plate you see above. Why? Cause it looks cool and was cheap – like $16 or so. It also solved the larger problem of how to fill out and hide the pre-drilled holes in my front bumper. Those holes are an actual problem for me because in Pennsylvania where I live, we’re not required to display a front license plate, so the holes normally would have just been visible for the world to see and for me to cringe over. I also happen to not like most other solutions available like billet plates and colored dots, so there you go.
Of course, besides the plate I also needed a plate mount, so on the day I picked up my car I also picked up one of Subaru’s OEM front plate mount kits (P/N: SOA342L120) for $35. If you have a Subaru and ever need a front plate mount, I’d highly recommend the OEM Subaru unit. It’s well made out of black powder coated stainless steel, so it’s both strong and corrosion-proof at the same time. It also comes with stainless screws to mount the bracket and plate with, so you’ll never have any issues with rust, which would suck on a white or light colored car like mine. As for the plate itself, it’s pretty much your standard issue stamped aluminum license plate, which is what they are in Japan as well. The main differences are that the vehicle class number on the top line of text is incorrect (it would be 300 or slightly higher), the text color is incorrect (it would be a dark green), and the mounting holes would be further out to the sides with a prefectural seal over one of the mounting bolts. That said, it makes perfect sense why it wouldn’t be 100% accurate because then people could buy one and drive around with a fake registration, which would be problematic. For America though, no one is the wiser about all that, so it looks accurate enough and lends an import flair to the vehicle, which is all I really want.
And it hides the holes.