FRONT LICENSE PLATE FRAME FOR THE T1N AIRSTREAM INTERSTATE

The T1N Interstates were a hybrid of Mercedes Sprinter and Airstream-applied body modifications, including the running board option that mates with the front bumper cover.  However, one feature was odd for an American-modified product - the front license plate area was apparently designed for neither European nor American plate sizes.  There are two bolts on the front of the cover that appear to be approximately the same width as German license plates, but that might just be a coincidence because the trapezoid-shaped inset area would not have accommodated their rectangular shapes (and also because those bolts are holding the bumper cover to the bumper).  The net result was a potentially awkward configuration when license plates are applied, as required by law in many American jurisdictions.

Well, that looks a bit less than ideal!  The owner of this baby appears to have simply screwed his plate directly to the bumper cover.  Just sorta stuck it on there like a postage stamp.  

Screengrabbed from a sales listing. 

I'm using a reference to the T1N Sprinters here but I really don't know how many model years this affected, because Interstates differ from year to year.  This appeared to have something to do with the historical hot-potato transfer of American Sprinter sourcing from Freightliner to Dodge and ultimately back to Mercedes Benz (?).  This is a screengrab from a 2004 Interstate sales listing, which shows a completely different front plate area and grill.  This one was obviously designed for the American style license plate.  

When we bought our 2007 Interstate a few months ago, we noticed that there had never been any front plate installed on it.  In some states, it is apparently legal to only have a plate on the rear of the vehicle; Texas law is convoluted and therefore a front plate is advisable (I don't think a missing plate is potentially worth getting pulled over for).

The first thing my husband did was research via the Airstream site how to get an appropriate plate bracket.  "You are not going to like it," he warned after he had located the information.

He was right.  I don't know what this cheap contraption is or how it's supposed to function, but it's definitely not the effect we were after. 

So, as is the case with so many Interstate modifications, we decided to make a plate frame ourselves, and this is what we came up with.

Aluminum diamond plate.  Pretty spiffy, in my opinion.  Certainly an improvement over New Yorker's version.  One could argue that, to be consistent with the Airstream aesthetic, maybe we should have used smooth aluminum instead of diamond plate.  However I felt that, without some kind of distinctive texture, it would simply blend into the bumper cover. 

Closer view.  Yes, I did redact our license plate.  We do not, in fact, have a plate number as cool as this generic example from TxDMV.

Here are the DIY instructions on this little gem, which was more tricky to construct than you might first imagine.

We decided on aluminum because it would be strong and would not rust (it is a bit pricey by virtue of those desirable characteristics).  My husband was able to pick up a small sheet similar to this one at Home Depot.  (Humorous aside:  Home Depot stocks various aluminum sheets, and Airstream DIYers sometimes refer to it as the BORG, which stands for Big Orange Retail Giant.)

Like everything else that comes into our houses, the item to be created was first mocked-up out of cardboard.  My husband first traced the outline of the inset area on the bumper, and then traced that onto the back side of the aluminum diamond plate sheet.  

He then cut the shape out with a small jig saw.

Clamped in place so that it can be cut.  

The result was as follows.  Note that the angle of this photograph makes the cardboard appear bigger than the cut aluminum, but they are really the same size.

The cut aluminum needed to be filed down to remove very sharp edges.

Here's where the installation gets a bit interesting.

Our original plan was to attach the plate frame to the two existing bolts and then bolt the license plate to the frame.  However, there were two problems with that.  First, this area is slightly curved and so flush-mounting an aluminum frame would have been a challenge.  Second, those bolts were apparently intended to simply hold the bumper cover to the bumper, and finding long-enough bolts to also accommodate a plate frame proved to be challenging.  So what my husband did instead is to replace those original two bolts with new stainless steel bolts (so they would not rust) that had shallower heads, such that they would lie closer to flush with the inset area.  And then he had to use a tap to thread two new holes in the upper part of the plate area, pushing through the cover into the underlying bumper itself...  

...such that the upper two plate screws were sunk directly into the underlying bumper.  By virtue of the way this area was constructed, the lower two were attached only to the bumper cover, so my husband had to include a wide washer on the back side of the cover to distribute the force across a larger area of fiberglass.

In this way, the plate was bolted to the bumper with the diamond aluminum plate frame simply sandwiched between the two, rather than via our original idea of using the existing two bolts to first secure the plate frame.  

Before-and-after style view, with the upper vehicle being a redacted sales listing screengrab (both vehicles are identical 2007 Interstates but the lower pic was taken with a wide-angle lens, so they appear a bit different).  

As usual, this is a noncommercial post presenting personal opinions only.  No retailer has provided any consideration in exchange for being cited.

An internet meme invoking a scene from a movie which, IMHO, was one of the worst ever produced.