Birth Certificates

Can anyone confirm that these birth certificates might be available for Australian built VW's?
I didn't want to go through the process and pay 50euro to find out the records don't include Aussie built VW's.

VW Official birth certificates - click here.

No
They dont have Australian records

Oh well. Thanks for that. Does anyone know if something similar exists for Aussie cars?

No production records of Australian manufactured VWs have survived. They were destroyed in the late 1960s when production ended and Volkswagen Australasia Ltd was dissolved. Since then, Volkswagen has had four different distribution companies in Australia. Today's Volkswagen Group Australia has only existed since 2001 and have no records of anything earlier.

Specifically, it is the 1960-67 Aussie-manufactured models that Germany has no record of. Earlier models than 1960, and after 1967, were German-made CKD kits so Wolfsburg will have chassis number production records for those. They WON'T have any info on what colour/trim combos there were, as that was done in Melbourne. The 1960-65 chassis numbers were consistent with German practice (consecutive numbers), but our 'blocks' of numbers were not preserved. Certificates of these will produced mixed results, such as the colour being wrong and the car being shipped to Fiji. Cars with Aussie 195-197 chassis numbers will get 'chassis number not known'.

Read more about Australian Volkswagens here:

http://www.clubvw.org.au/austvw001

Thanks mate.
My 66 type 3 falls in this group I guess.

Type 3s didn't quite have the same Australian content that Beetles did, although all their sheet metal was pressed in Melbourne.

What are the first three digits of your chassis number? I am not even sure whether Australian '65-'67 Type 3s used a '9' as the second digit, as Beetles did. If not and your chassis number is 316.... then you should be able to get some sort of certificate from Wolfsburg. Of course the colour, trim and delivery info will be wrong!

Forgive my ignorance, but how do i go about getting records for my vehicle?
It is a US import but i don't know if it was built there or in europe...?

Is it a hard/ convoluted process to gain info on a vehicle?

The info on a vehicle comes from VW's Wolfsburg headquarters, specifically the archive in the VW AutoMuseum (not the AutoStadt just beside the factory). VW's archives there still have all the info on every specific VW that came off the German production lines - date of manufacture, model type, paint colour, accessories fitted, date of delivery, place of delivery, etc etc. The Autostadt can prepare a 'birth certificate' on a specific car, if you give them the chassis number and/or the engine number.

This is great for European and UK VW enthusiasts, as their VWs came from Wolfsburg (or other VW factories in Europe such as Emden, Hanover, Osnabruck, Ingolstadt etc). It's also great for US enthusiasts, as American-sale VWs also came from Germany. Americans never had a VW factory; at least not until the Golf (Rabbit) was built there from 1978. Mexican VWs were never sold in the USA either. So ex-USA cars are also German, and will be fine for the certificate.

To get a VW Birth Certificate for your German-made VW, just apply at the link below. It will cost 50 Euro. and takes about 6 weeks.

http://automuseum.volkswagen.de/urkunden.html?&L=1

But as mentioned, this won't work for the majority of our VWs, as they were made in Melbourne, not Germany. The AutoMuseum has no records on Australian production.

Yep. I have a 50 euro piece of toilet paper somewhere saying my oval is in Fiji.

Phil74Camper wrote:Type 3s didn't quite have the same Australian content that Beetles did, although all their sheet metal was pressed in Melbourne.

What are the first three digits of your chassis number? I am not even sure whether Australian '65-'67 Type 3s used a '9' as the second digit, as Beetles did. If not and your chassis number is 316.... then you should be able to get some sort of certificate from Wolfsburg. Of course the colour, trim and delivery info will be wrong!

Thanks Phil,
Yes the chassis number under the rear seat and the vin stamp in the front wheel-well are the same 316 151 ###
I worked out that paint was Bahama blue from the clubvw site and taking my glove box lid to vintage veedub to ask Boris and Michael to have a look at the preserved colour on the inside. They both confirmed Bahama blue since the sticker in the wheel-well was long gone. To be honest I just wanted to know if my engine block was original block when delivered so I could work out if it was worth hanging on to since I'm building a complete new engine. I'll find a spot for it I think, it seems like an original 1600 with single port heads and dual carbs but its in very poor condition. It hadn't been driven in 20 years so there's a fair chance that it was driven till it stopped and then parked under a car port as a driveway ornament for the next twenty years and the engine bay became a nice little cave for field mice.

Thanks Phil,

That's a massive help.
50 euro is a bit of coin, but it's a good thing to have with the car, another bit of history 😉

cheers!