Cars being checked in at the Hobbs Army Air Field open house in 1943. The car in the foreground has a 1942 license plate, along with its companion 1943 windshield sticker. Note also the World War II class A gasoline rationing sticker. Courtesy David L. Minton.
This 1939 Ford Standard has the black-on-white 1942 passenger car plate on the bumper, the wartime 1943 paper revalidation sticker on the windshield, and a very unhappy kid on the fender. Neither the identity nor the reason for his discontent are known. NMplates.com collection.
When the steel shortages of World War II became particularly serious just prior to 1943, the state of New Mexico required motorists to keep their 1942 plates on their vehicles for an additional year. Numbered paper windshield stickers (decals) were then issued for 1943 once registration fees had been paid for that year. Materials found accompanying this photo indicate that the people seen here are Second Lieutenant Paul G. Meyer and his wife Margaret Lea Danfelser Meyer. The couple had initially met at Albuquerque’s Kirtland Field USO, and married in 1942 at Foster Field, Victoria, Texas. Courtesy Rick Holben.
Due to the shortage of steel during World War II, New Mexico's 1942 plates were retained into 1943 and revalidated with the windshield sticker seen on the passenger side in this photo. The woman leaning against the car is Alice Sharp of Portales who was a student at Eastern New Mexico College (now ENMU) at the time. See the page on the 1943 Windshield Stickers for a closeup color photo of one of these stickers. Author's collection.