I am amused by all the different types of tail lights that were fitted to Beetles over the years. To the extent I have a couple of questions for those with knowledge please, sorry if this is trivial!

1/ Heart tail lights what year Beetles were these fitted to and were they fitted on Aust assembled cars or imported cars only? What was the idea behind the upward facing heart light, I realise for upward facing red light but why?

2/ Snowflake tail lights 1954 to 1960 is this correct, again imports only or were they on Aust assembled cars?

3/ 50/50s Italian and Aust assembed cars 1961 only is this correct?

Thank you......

Really, hearts were not fitted Aust assembled cars????? I wonder where the 54 and 55's get them from then.

Thank you, that's great.

of course hearts were on pre '55 in Australia and everywhere else. I'm not 100% on when they started but I think late '52/53, after the round tail-light of the split beetle. The heart lense is the brake light, the snowflake patterned vertical lense is the tail-light and reflector.

"Heart" tail lights first appeared as a feature of the newly re-designed beetle in late 1952. This was the so called Zwitter beetle as it still had the split rear window but the rest of the body was already the new "oval" design. Australian built cars of '54 to mid-'55 had the "Hearts" just laike the rest of the world. The upwards facing "heart" is the brake light and the vertical lense is the running light/reflector.

Snow-flake tail lights were on mid-'55 to '60 model cars in all markets.

The 50/50 lights were unique to Italian and Australian markets in '61

* of course there are more detailed variations between different markets but this is a pretty general description.