From the Lawrence Daily Journal-World for Jan. 27, 1972:

In an interesting conjunction of old deadlines and new regulations, three different colors of Kansas license plates were legal at this time of the new year. On this date, one could see the red-and-white 1971 tags, the 1972 black-and-whites, and the new green-on-gold 1973 plates. The 1971 tags were still legal on trucks, motorcycles, trailers and mobile homes which were not included in the new staggered system of vehicle registration. People with their last names at the very end of the alphabet could also possibly have a 1971 tag because of the 30-day grace period ending on Jan. 31. The new system scheduled registrations over 10 months of the year, depending on the first letter of the vehicle owner’s last name. Some confusion accompanied the system, but many officials liked the new process, especially county treasurers, because it solved the problem of the long lines that had packed the courthouse every January in past years.