Westfalia Essen Trailer & Determining It's Manufacture Date

[michael.kutch]

Hi, everyone. I have a trailer now for my '69 Westfalia bus. I have attached a few pictures of it below. Where is the best place or person to chat with about finding its date of manufacture? For everyone, please make this a central thread for others to find their answer too. Anybodies feelings about tracking down the manufacture date of a Westy Essen trailer, I am very interested in hearing. Thanks! Mike

[notchboy]

Mike,

Lots of information on these Essen trailers is out there. Unfortunately its all fan based info. Myself included. Westfalia did not use a sensible # system that can be denoted and as far as I know there is no documentation on what VIN #'s denote for what trailers in any specific year. So you cant look at a chart, look up 1969 production #s and find what was made in November with a VIN or production # range.

I bet it exists/existed, but Westfalia has ben a brand that has been passed around and a lot of the cool early history for them has been tossed in the bin. I tried a few years back to get actual company leads in their advertising department and was basically told the above. The company was valuable in name only and no other parts, pieces, history, papers - anything, followed.

The common way to determine the year was/is the second # of the VIN - fabric # on yours - so 1973. But a quick refresher to myself with other enthusiasts on FB reminded me of that inaccuracy and lack of it being a truly grounded method. So the type and style of the trailer falls into part of that determination.

Your trailer is the first type of Essen made. The lighter stain on the paneling and the kick up tubular build are clear indicators. In 74-76 somewhere the second type was made with darker paneling and different kicks that were pressed. As far as I know that went into the early 80's.

The proof partial to this second # theory being off is that I've had a couple German registered Essens. None of them had paperwork that matched the year on the trailer with the year on the papers. Close - like the paperwork said 1979 but the # number was a 0 - so 1980.

Once again this is all fan boy speculation and I'm sure there are others out there with twists to all this based on their experience. The FB group is honestly the better place to pepper for a wider range of enthusiasts and this samba page is good to have an easily accessed feed of the information found.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/259975957415954

Also Mike - I have early 2015 pics of your trailer in my gallery.

https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/album_search.php...t_dir=DESC

When I was going down the Essen rabbit hole, yours was one of the only ones seen with the covered top frame. It was very cool to see it at the time and pushed me to collect some.

Lastly, on my last two Essens that I have - one of them is a 175,OOO anniversary edition. Right here we see they kept track some how. They made a celebration out of it.

From what I was told this is a 1978 thing, but the VIN says 1977.

I look forward to being informed and the speculation.
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[michael.kutch]

Amazing Notchboy!!

The trailer in the link that you sent is the trailer I have. The same one. This is an incredible neato experience to come together with a chat. So cooool!!

Do you have a copy of the original documentation for it at all?

How do you know it is from 1971? I got it from California and can tell you more about where and who. It was a great experience.


Mike

[notchboy]

Mike for sure welcome. I hope you expound on it. Now read what I wrote again, slowly.
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[michael.kutch]

Jason,

Did you ever create a title for the trailer that I now have? I would like to have title for it myself to be able to drive it without getting in trouble.

Mike

[notchboy]

I've only ever had two with titles. They were both from Germany and had registration papers. All other trailers were from the Netherlands where they didn't have to register them, so no papers.

No I don't have papers for you brother or I'd of given them to you. I just sold one here in California without papers, they went to the dmv, told them no papers and or lost, then the dmv signed them up.

Not sure how it works in Arizona.
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[michael.kutch]

The person I bought our trailer from is in the County of Los Angeles. I can give you their name and Email. Could you possibly assist them with the dmv to repeat what happened with the dmv "signing them up?" To then pass the title to me?

[notchboy]