Front Euro Plate

The front licence plate holder on the US Minis is, in my opinion, too bulky. It sits up too high and covers the lower grill didn't like this so I installed a European style licence plate on my Mini. I got the licence plate frame from Schoolhouse Graphics. The plate itself came from Fancy Plates in England. It took about 3 weeks to get but I like the fact that I was able to order customer lettering and styles. I was also able to order it with the Mini logo.

Here's how I did it.

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The stock plate holder is not very elegant. It covers up too much of the lower part of the grill. Also, it can't just be removed. It is molded in to the filler plate that goes where the European plate bolts up. Since I live in Arizona, I didn't need it anyways.		The first step to fix this is to remove the dealership info plate. You are left with this. The only thing holding it on is the 2 screws in the lower corners and some doubler-sided tape.
A closeup of one of the screws.		Filler panel/plate holder removed. I forgot to take a pic of removing it, but all you do is remove the two screws and pull the bottom toward you to release the double sided tape. Then pull it down and out a little at the same time. It will just pull out.
This is what is removed. You can see the double-sided tape and tabs that hold the top in place. The tabs are why you have to pull down to remove the filler plate.		This is the euro plate holder I got from Schoolhouse Graphics. It comes with mounting screws (package) but I reused the factory screws to mount it. The top (bottom in this pic) is hinged. After mounting the holder, simply open it up, slip in the plate, and then close it until it clicks shut.
The first time I mounted the plate holder, I found it to be too floppy. To resolve this, I placed a couple peices of double-sided tape in the upper corners to hold it in place better.		Once oriented properly (hinge part up) I simply lined the holes in the plate holder with the holes in the bumper and reinstalled the factor screws. I did add some washers under the screw heads to keep the screws from pulling through the plastic. Then I installed the plate and pressed the corner double-sided tape against the bumper.
This is what it looked like before the double sided tape in the corners. Being flat on the curved bumper, the corners stuck out.		This is after the double-sided tape was added. Now, the plate curves to conform to the bumper.

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