It Just Looks Wrong!
One of the things you gotta understand about me, is that I'm
obsessed with the little details. I don't believe in doing anything halfway,
especially when the little bits add up to a bigger whole. One of the first
obvious things that jumped out at me when I got my car, was that the rear
license plate just looked ... wrong! The lines on the 944
are so nice; curves and edges flowing here and there, blending around just
right. Then when something breaks the flow, it feels like fingernails on
a chalkboard. That's how the license plate struck me.
Imagine
if you were to connect the tops of the tailights, there's a horizontal lines
that flows across the rear. Same thing with a line across the bottom of
the lights. Then more parallel lines below which borders the area with the
"PORSCHE" label just above the bumper. It all looks very purposeful
and tidy. Then.... someone goes and puts the license plate TOO LOW and breaks
up this nice pattern. Click on the picture and see what I mean...
Lets Fix It!
Upon looking at the R.O.W. cars, they had the European
license plates centered between the taillights. That was my goal, but how
to do it without drilling new holes in the body? Well, looking at the license
plate frame, it looks like I could just rotate it 180-degrees and viola!
But the long end of the frame hits the bodywork, so I cut 5mm off that end.
Then I drilled some new holes to perfectly center the plate.
Ahhhh... Much Better !!!
Then I held the plate on for a test and WOW!! What an
improvement that made. Then I spent the next 10-minutes putting the attachment
bolts back on; Porsche's lack of "service engineering" rears its
ugly head. You need three hands to put the plate on! One to hold the plate
in place, one to hold the nut on the backside with an open-end wrench, and
one to turn the screwdriver from the front!
With equal end-results (putting on a license plate), getting there easier has got to be the better path. So I epoxied the bolts onto the frame from the backside so they'd point outward. Now, I can put the plate on and let go, reach down and get the nuts and socket and tighten everything up. Total time... 1-minute! Just think if someone at the factory had done this the first time, why, they'd save thousands of us 9-minutes each! remember... every little bit adds up...