Type-65 Coupe registration experience in Washington State

[Shakey]

I got my Coupe registered in April of this year and have been driving it since. Which has been awesome. Big picture, the registration process is about what you would expect, lots of red tape, paperwork and waiting. It took me roughly 2 months or so from when I started the process to when I had my car registered. The most time consuming part, by far, was getting my VIN inspection done with the WSP. I’ll go into more detail on that later. This is just my experience working though this process in the spring of 2024 from Mount Vernon in Skagit County.

Where to start?

Once I had my car in a condition that I deemed “road worthy” I began the registration process. “Road worthy” can be pretty subjective but, for me it was making sure I had all the things a daily driver would have installed and working. I.E. lights, wipers, windows, windshield taped in, mirrors, license plate bracket and light ext. I also did a very rough alignment with a tape measure just to get it close. You will need to be comfortable diving on public roads and in my case up and down I-5.

My first stop was to my local vehicle licensing office (AMSI) and I started asking questions. Here is a breakdown of the steps:

1. Get a Washington State Patrol Inspection Request form from your vehicle licensing office.
2. Schedule a VIN inspection with WSP (the most difficult and time consuming part of this process).
3. Get your car weighed and get a certified weight slip from a certified scale.
4. Take all your paperwork to your vehicle licensing office and get your registration.


Each step broken down.


1. Get a Washington State Patrol Inspection Request form from vehicle licensing office.

This is fairly easy and self-explanatory. I told the licensing office the car was a 1965 Factory Five Type 65 coupe and they generated the form for me. For the next two steps, you will need a one day vehicle transit permit to drive to your scale and to the VIN inspection. These temporary permits are about $10 each and you do not need to get them the day of. If you want to drive your car to a scale on Friday you can get your permit earlier in the week and just have them date it for Friday. Unless you get your car weighed on the way to your VIN inspection, you will need two of these permits. You will need to bring your weight slip to your VIN inspection.

Here is the list of scale locations from the DOL:

https://dol.wa.gov/vehicles-and-boat...shington-state


2. Schedule a VIN inspection with WSP (the most difficult and time consuming part of this process).

You do not need the form mentioned in step 1 to schedule an appointment but, you will need to bring it to the appointment. I would start trying to get an appointment as early as you can. For me, after about 3 weeks of trying, I was never able to schedule an appointment online. They are so backed up that all the appointments for Skagit County were gone within 60-90 seconds of them being posted. After 2 weeks of checking and trying to get an appointment online, I called my local WSP office and left them a message saying I needed a VIN inspection. About 4 days later they called me back and asked some questions and said they would try and get me in if there were any cancelations. About a week after that they called back and got me an appointment.

I highly recommend calling your local WSP office in addition to trying to get an appointment online. For online appointments you can using the link below, follow the instructions/videos and it will help you out.

https://www.wsp.wa.gov/driver/schedule-a-vin/

New appointments are posted each Tuesday at approximately 11am. I used the “Assembled/Kit vehicles” selection. I have seen new appointments post anywhere from 10:45 to 11:05. Every week, I would be at my computer during this time refreshing the page and waiting for the appointments to post. On my second week I finally saw one. I did not know that just because you click on the appointment, it does not mean it is reserved. Once you click on an available appointment it will ask for your car’s serial number, make/model and any comments. If you have to look it up and type it in like I did, you will not be able to complete the form in time and most likely the spot you picked will be lost to someone who entered their data faster, this is what happen to me. Note, this data can be changed after the fact. I recommend getting this data ahead of time in a word doc that you can copy and paste out of in order to speed this up.

For the date of your appointment, you will need to bring all your paperwork including, Picture ID, Inspection request form, FFR provided certificate of origin, certified weight slip, and all your receipts. They will want to see the frame serial number stamp so don’t have it drilled through or covered by the dash. Or like I did, be prepared to unbolt and move part of the dash so that they can see it. The inspector went through the following checklist available here:

https://www.wsp.wa.gov/wp-content/up...ide_R_5-24.pdf

My inspector was fairly new and she did mention that she is not here to do a “safety” check but, just to see if the items are installed. There were things on the list like rear reflectors and bumpers that she asked about that I did not have installed. I said things like “Those were not installed by the OEM in 1965 so they are not on this car” or “the bumper is under the fiberglass body” and she accepted those answers. The person I dealt with did not know anything about cars, so be prepared for that possibility and you will likely have to explain most things on the car I.E. "where are the brake lines?". This was just my experience and yours could differ. I would recommend asking the inspector if they can have your VIN match the serial no. on your car. It just makes things easier. Don’t forget to rivet in your VIN plate from FFR.

Once my inspection was complete, I got the WSP VIN inspection form. This is only good for 60 days so, don’t wait to get your car registered.


3. Get your car weighed and get a certified weight slip from a certified scale.

Easy and self-explanatory, plus an extra opportunity to get out and drive your car. I put this step after the VIN inspection just because it takes so long to get a VIN appointment you should start working that first. It’s also fun to know what your car weighs. Mine was 2960lbs with me in it and ¾ of a tank of gas. You will need your weight slip first in order to get your VIN inspection done!


4. Take all your paperwork to your vehicle licensing office and get your registration.

After I had all my paperwork together, including receipts, certificate of origin from FFR and invoice from FFR I went to the licensing office and got started. My car was the first time they had ever done this so, it was a learning experience for them too. As far as taxes go, the person I worked with just basically asked me what the value was and she based the amount I needed to pay off of that. I had all my receipts there but she didn’t look at them. I added up what I thought was fair in front of her and that was the value she used to calculate what I owed. I choose to register my coupe as a collector vehicle. She basically gave me the option to register as a collector vehicle or not. You cannot do a custom plate with a collector vehicle so keep that in mind. With a collector plate you only pay registration on the car once in it's lifetime so that is what I went with (A much cheaper option). My licensing office had to call a bunch of folks and ask questions because this was a first for them. Just be prepared for that and it’s going to take some time to get this done. My Type-65 was titled as a 1965 Home-made(HMMD) Cobra Daytona Coupe. Lastly, they kept all my original paperwork, even the certificate of origin from FFR which made me a bit uncomfortable but they provided me with copies. I got a temp plate that day and my official plate in the mail a couple weeks later.

Other than the VIN inspection the process really isn’t too bad. Again, this is just my experience and yours may differ. Good luck and let me know if there are any questions. Here are a few pictures of my car out in the wild this summer after getting it registered. The odometer just passed 1000 Miles!







V/r

Shakey

[bjblock]

Thanks for the write-up, great info. Do you have to run a front license plate?

[Shakey]

Thanks for the write-up, great info. Do you have to run a front license plate?

Good question. No. In addition to not having to pay registration fees every year, another perk of registering as a collector vehicle is that they only send you one plate for the rear and don't require a front plate.

V/r

Shakey

[D Stand]

Congrats on getting it registered and on the road.

[Dmac800]

Hi Shakey,

You did a great write-up of your experience on getting your Coupe licensed.

I own a vehicle licensing office in Puyallup and wanted to let you know that some of your information is incorrect. Like you said, they had to figure out how to do your transaction. If you came into my office in the past, we would have had to try to figure it out as well. These types of transactions are few and far between for us, so most offices will have to look up how to process them. It all depends on how the office looks up how to do it. That is why some get them licensed as a 1965 and some can't.

If DOL reviews your transaction, they will most likely reject it because it was done wrong. The year should have been the year that your kit was produced, not the year that it replicates. In your case it looks like that probably would have been a 2022 year. If it was licensed as a 2022 year, then it would not be able to be licensed as a collector vehicle.

Since I have a Coupe on order, I wanted to get some clarification on what all was needed to license these. What year to use and emissions. Unfortunately, we are to license these by the year that the kit was produced not the year that is being replicated, so once I get my coupe in October or November and we get it built, it will have to be licensed as a 2024.

The big issue that I am trying to get clarified with DOL is that once we put it in as a 2024, the state computer system will ask if it is California Emissions Compliant. My contact can't find anywhere in WAC or RCW that kit vehicles require emissions. There are exemptions on the "California Emissions compliant" form, but Kit/custom/Street rod is not one of the exemptions. He is doing more researcher on this. I will send him another email next week to see if there is a work around to get past this requirement until DOL either updates the form or gets the computer system updated to not require emissions on "KITV" use class.

Don McCallum
McCallum License Agency

[Shakey]

Don,

Thanks for the comments. It sounds like I lucked out with the licensing office I used. I don't doubt that some of what they did was incorrect or not per the states codes. I am not an expert in the WA regulations and more or less just taking their word for it. As for emissions, Skagit county does not require emissions testing. This was a non-issue for me registering my car. I would be curious to see what you find out on the emissions side for those in counties that require it.

V/R

Shakey

[AGM]

Good evening Shakey,

I really appreciated your missive on licensing the 65 Coupe in Washington. I live on Whidbey Island - Island County - and hope to have the licensing challenge at some point.

With a view of building a Type 65, I am trying to find a Gen 3 to look at in order to assess whether or not if I am 'literally' a good fit with the car.

Would it be possible to meet in the near future - at a location of your choosing? I am thinking that I would buy lunch and would like to hear about your experience.

I have been thinking of building for a long time and I am now in a position to get underway. I just want to be confident in the final result with a clear / physical view of what to expect.

Your thoughts good sir?

Take care,

Allen