Citing the expense to the state of additional specialty license plates, Missouri vetoed a bill that included SEMA-drafted provisions to expand the titling and registration class for street rods and create a custom vehicle class. The bill had passed overwhelmingly by the Missouri Legislature. Unfortunately, the SEMA provisions were attached to other bills, unrelated to the street rod/custom sections, that created a slate of new special license plate options. The SEMA provisions exempted rods and customs from periodic inspections and emissions tests. It also allowed for the use of non-original materials and created a titling criterion that assigned these vehicles the same model year designation as the production vehicle it most closely resembles. The bill will be reintroduced in 2004. Had it been signed into law this year, Missouri would have joined Illinois among states that have enacted the SEMA bill.
