How illegal is this? Modifying license plates to look original...

[CentralCoaster]

In CA, you can't reassign old plates to your vehicle unless it's older than 1962. I want to paint the new plates on my truck to look like the cool yellow on black '69 plates.

I took a newer blue on white plate off my garage wall to try and make it look like a 69 plate, just for practice.

Basically painted a thick yellow coat on there, then black, and rubbed the black off the letters.

Here's the test plate pretty much done:



I'm going to give it another shot with a mustard yellow, this one is too bright.

The main problem is the new CA plates I have don't have the embossed state name. So I'd either have to try stenciling/masking it onto a flat surface, or maybe easier, cutting up some old plates and welding the top half onto my plates. Do you guys think I'm taking this too far? It seems like the only way to get black/yellow on my truck that it originally came with.

I don't see how the cops would mind, if they even noticed. The only way they'd know is that it's a new numbering sequence.