INDIANAPOLIS — Movie fans sometimes embrace their favorite film or actor by buying a piece of Hollywood - and some of those pieces are made right here in the Indiana.
Travis Bell makes it his business to work with super heroes, promote super stars and celebrate the silver screen's wide range of movies and TV shows thorugh license plates.
"We do roughly 200 different license plates from 150 movies and television shows," Bell says.
Bell created Celebrity Machines 18 years ago after he bought the car known as the "General Lee" from "The Dukes of Hazard."
"It always looks weird with an Indiana license plate on the back, so I chased down one of the original prop makers and the people that make the plates for the show," Bell said.
Now, his inventory includes more than a quarter of a million plates from shows like "Ghostbusters" and "Back to the Future."
"People give them as gifts, they get them autographed, they put them on their cars," Bell said.
Bell said his favorite plates are the ones which hold a secret message in the number and letter combination, like the license plate on "Herbie the Love Bug."
"(Herbie) has an absolutely boring "OFP857" California license plate, which means 'Our First Production August 1957,'" Bell said.
Or the one from the Blues Brothers - BDR529 - which Bell says actually stands for "Illinois and the Black Diamond Riders Club," which was at 529. "That was the first club that Dan Akroyd ever played in," Bell said.
Bell's Hoosier business also made and sells the plates from other comedic movies such as "Anchorman," "Breaking Bad" and for stars like Hulk Hogan and Vanilla Ice.
