If you can afford a Porsche Panamera 4S it’s safe to assume you can afford to pay road tolls and speeding fines. But that didn’t stop one Canadian driver going to extreme lengths to fit a cloaking device for his car’s rear license plate that could potentially get him out of paying for both.
The stealthy black Panamera was fitted with an equally stealthy aftermarket license plate holder that could roll a cover down over the plate like the curtain coming down on a stage show. Officers from Halton Regional Police discovered the trick when they stopped what they initially thought was a car running without a license plate. But when they investigated further they uncovered the truth about the plate holder.
The device was clearly designed to conceal the plate and could be activated from the driver’s seat when the car’s owner pressed a button. Though different in execution, it’s similar in principle to the revolving number plates fitted to James Bond’s Aston Martin DB5 in 1965’s Goldfinger.
You might have seen devices like these for sale on the internet, and even if you haven’t you’ve probably dreamed about having something similar. But we’re willing to bet that in most countries getting busted for using one is more serious – and more expensive – than a regular speeding offense. The tweet from Halton Regional Police says the driver was charged, but not what he was charged with.
Related: Burglary Suspects’ Mercedes Caught With James Bond-Style Flipping License Plate In California
The Milton District Response Unit stopped what they thought was a un-plated vehicle tonight. Investigation revealed that the driver had a licence plate concealing device. The driver was charged. The licence plate could be concealed by pressing a button from the driver’s seat! ^cm pic.twitter.com/WHpGvVmXWv
— HRPS Milt HHills (@HRPSMiltHH) May 7, 2023
This driver’s retractable license cover is just one of many ways car owners try to obscure their plates. Others include spraying the plate with a special coating, covering it with film or fitting it to a flip-up base. Canada’s Toronto Star reported in March that the use of plate covers designed to obscure the numbers and letters in the country has grown sharply over the last five years.
Of 11,000 red light and speed camera images taken in Toronto in 2020, about 5.3 per cent of the total captured had to be thrown out because of an obscured plate, according to data provided to the Star. By 2022, that number had climbed to 82,000 obstructions, almost 18 per cent of the total, and although some of those could be attributed to trailers obscuring a car’s plate or one car following another too closely, experts believe cheat devices are largely responsible for the jump.
H/T to Motor1!