The story behind the plate, presented to Mr Michelle by his children to mark a significant birthday, goes back many years when the exhaust fell off the car at Ranfurly and he broke a piece of wire from a fence, hooked it up and drove home.
The immaculately presented car, along with another of Mr Michelle's Model As, made an impressive sight parked outside the Highway House Bed and Breakfast - appropriately built in 1935 - in Lynn St yesterday.
Mr Michelle and his wife, Margaret, from Outram, and their friends, Terry Duffield and Barbara Robinson, from Dunedin, were in Oamaru for the town's Victorian heritage celebrations and, particularly, the glamour event - last night's heritage ball in the Scottish Hall.
They loved the dancing and the atmosphere, Mrs Michelle said.
The Michelles have been coming to the celebrations for about seven years, while their friends had been coming for nine or 10 years.
Today, they will meet a group from Christchurch and drive over the Dansey Pass, before tackling the Dunstan Trail tomorrow.
For Mr Duffield, driving a Model A Ford was a new experience, although he had previously had a 20-minute lesson.
The only hiccup had been bringing the main street of Mosgiel to a standstill on Thursday when he stopped at a pedestrian crossing and could not get going again.
"They [other motorists] were very good. They didn't beep their horns; they sat and waited," he said.
He also joked that he had got it up to a nine on the "rattle-o-meter" but said he had "learned how to drive it now".
Mrs Michelle said she and her husband had driven some "hairy roads" over the years in their old cars. Last year, they went into the Nevis Valley.
It was a fairly comfortable ride, although noisy and they could get "a bit grubby", she said.
