license plates

I talked to a CHP rep who had a booth at a car show in Sacramento a couple of years ago about this. She said if you can secure a pair of plates for a vehicle manufactured prior to ... and I think it was prior to the mid-1950's ..... you could petition the state to use those plates. In my mind, I wanted to do this for a 1969 Kawasaki I own, but the production date did not fall into the date range the rep said. You can call the toll free phone number to DMV for accurate info.