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Mon Sep 05, 2005 1:11 pm

All that years i never seen Right hand drive split window.
Only Left hand drive split is register? :?

Mon Sep 05, 2005 1:15 pm

yes they made them! 51 was first year i think? :?: mid 53 for busses
steve wood had a 51 rhd from south africa.

Mon Sep 05, 2005 11:27 pm

sgmalt46 wrote:
steve wood had a 51 rhd from south africa.

Steve's car was originally LHD, converted to RHD.

Tue Sep 06, 2005 3:04 am

I have seen a pic of one RHD KdF-Wagen in Barber's book.

There were some RHD cars created in England before VW started making them regularly, such as the Colburne-Baber 1947 VW.

Mike

Tue Sep 06, 2005 4:30 am

I believe there were RHD models made for the Republic of Ireland too.

Tue Sep 06, 2005 8:00 pm

according to "original VW beetle" the first german built RHD arrived in england on april 7, 1952. However, a plant in Ireland had been producing their own RHD's as early as 1950, as well as the previously mentioned english Colborne-baber RHD's in 1947.

Tue Sep 06, 2005 11:49 pm

kdf38@netzero.net wrote: I have seen a pic of one RHD KdF-Wagen in Barber's book.

This is correct. Ferdinand Porsche made a RHD Beetle early in the war. For what reason is a mystery since Germany hated those in countries using RHD cars.

Wed Sep 07, 2005 4:11 am

Bruce wrote:
This is correct. Ferdinand Porsche made a RHD Beetle early in the war. For what reason is a mystery since Germany hated those in countries using RHD cars.

Hmmm, there's an obvious answer to that...but let's not go there (thankfully neither did they). I have a lot of friends in Germany :wink:

Wed Sep 07, 2005 7:01 am

There are some ex south africa RHD splits in australia, our local magazine did a feature on a restored one a little while back. One of our club members has a 51 RHD, its a standard with cable brakes, no side trim etc. AFAIK its always been RHD, needs a resto but it is complete & being driven, nice to have such an old car around & on the road.

Fri Sep 09, 2005 8:16 am

Just an odd note, from Barber's book on early VW: Austria had part of the country driving on the left and part driving on the right in 1938. ( you can imagine the situation at the cross over points on roads. This was done on provincial lines) So RhD cars would have been made for the potential Austrian market as well as the other export markets that Hitler came to hate. In the late 30's he still thought that Britain would come over to National Socialism, not to mention the need for export markets to keep up the production planned for the KdF car, vastly greater than the local German market could support. Germany had a very low car ownership ration compared to the rest of Europe, and infintily smaller than the US, which he was trying to emulate.

Eric Mack

Sat Sep 10, 2005 12:51 pm

The cars were built from the start with left or right side provisions. They knew they would be doing both. :)

Fri Sep 23, 2005 3:49 am

Flame me if you want, but would it be a real sacrelige to convert a LHD split to RHD, and how difficult would it be? :?
Is it a good idea, considering that we drive on the left over here?