1960 Astralian snowflakes with built in indicators?!

Deanodynosaurs

I was buying some parts of a guy the other day, and as always we got chatting about VW's!

Well we got onto the conversation of tail lights, and he showed me a pair of snowflake tail lights, which had factory built in indicators!

I have never heard of, or seen these before, but apparently he said that in 1960, due to snowflake tail lights not being legal in Australia, Volkswagen added a indicator bulb to into snowflake rear tail lights to make them legal. This was a one year only part.

Does anybody else know anything about these at all? Has anybody GOT any?!

Cheers in advance,

Dude Cool

HerrrKafer · Posted: Tue Mar 17, 2009 3:46 am Post subject:

PICS OR IT DIDN'T HAPPEN Cool

I'm skeptical, but it does (sort of) make sense as a very first "oh shit!" reaction if the law changed to outlaw semaphores. An extra bulb in the snowflakes would allow the use of the semaphore-style turn signal switch.

My understanding was that Australia and Italy first dropped the semaphores in '61 and used a completely different taillight, that was smaller but similar in design to the 62-67 taillight.

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.

But I suppose a multi-bulbed snowflake could have come first, in the interim. I would be interested to see what the Australia market guru around here has to say.
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Deanodynosaurs · Posted: Tue Mar 17, 2009 4:17 am Post subject:

gt1953 · Posted: Tue Mar 17, 2009 12:03 pm Post subject:

VW the world of small changes that we eventually discover.
I think it is interesting.
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hitest · Posted: Tue Mar 17, 2009 2:20 pm Post subject: aussie lights vs. world

start producing those yourself- and cats like me will run factory wiring on their '62 verts- but with earlier taillights!
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Deanodynosaurs · Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2009 4:19 am Post subject: Re: aussie lights vs. world

IN2VWS

58volks · Samba Member Joined: February 28, 2009 Posts: 67

Mine has one like what you described.

in Brazil the semaphres had a problem, kids thought it was"fun" to break them off. As well as mercedes hood stars.

I have 2 types (they came w the car whe I bought it) one has a normal brakeligh bulb and the signal lamps are the same ome as from the speedometer. (They only work in pitch black nights.) And the other pair is 2 normal bulbs (Tihs one is factory)

Deanodynosaurs · Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2009 5:19 am Post subject:

58volks · Samba Member Joined: February 28, 2009 Posts: 67

A lengthy one.....

Ok, heres the thing. I just moved recently. Every thing is in boxes. The ones fitted in the car are the ones with the little tiny dash lights (I think they are home made) but Ill get the screw driver out and take a pic this weekend for you. The other one...I have no idea where they are. But its the same thing. At lunch time today I called an old guy that worked at the dealership in the 60s and 50s.

The story is:

In Brazil, up to 1959 bugs were imported. In mid 59 the rest of the stoks they had were re-stamped and sold as brazilian-made vws (chassis and bodies). In 61, they had no more semaphores.
The semaphores were so fragile, they broke down all the time. And people used to vandalize them as I said before. The dealerships started to "fix" this by filling in the hole in the B column and put in the additional lights in the tail. After this the factory totaly eliminated the semaphores.

My car is a rag, german import, only the hard sunroof was made in Brazil.
So mine shoud have the semaphores, one day, dieing of curiosity I wire brushed the colum and there it was, some one welded the hole in.

The tail lights-

Both pairs I have looks like I could have done better in my garage using a piece from a big spoon, cutting 2 holes and weldin in the bulb sockets.
But they ARE from the dealerships.

The ones I have that use the little dash lights I almost always have to stick my arm out of the car because people can never see them. I never tried the other ones, frankly ive been too lazy to change them and "if its working....."

Anyways, I hope this eases your anxiety for now. Ill take the pics this weekedn and will send them on Monday or Tuesday. PM me to remind me.

58volks · Samba Member Joined: February 28, 2009 Posts: 67

Ok, I took the tail light appart yesterday. Bad news, it looks like crap, it had been so long since id looked at it id forgotten the state. Its REALLY home made. Im trying to find the USB cable for my cell phone (camera) so I can up load the pictures.
The factory lights are still in a sea of boxes all over my house....

keep you posted

Deanodynosaurs · Posted: Mon Mar 23, 2009 4:30 pm Post subject:

samhvw · Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2014 4:31 am Post subject:

if any of you fellas are still interested i can confirm the story to be true, here is an attached picture of the 50 50 tail lights.

Low Bräu · Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2014 6:26 am Post subject:

[quote="samhvw"]if any of you fellas are still interested i can confirm the story to be true, here is an attached picture of the 50 50 tail lights.

[/quote

Problem being those aren't snow flake (56-61) tail lights. They look just like the ones HerrrKafer posted pics of which better resemble the 62 up tail lights.
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Aussiebug · Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2014 5:12 pm Post subject:

Hi Samhvw - nice to see another Adelaide resident on the forum.

I learned to drive in 1967, in my Dad's bone stock 1960 bug.

It had semaphores (called Trafficators here in Aus back then). The humidity in Darwin always had them sticking and I was forever removing them to clean the rust off the slider and oil them so they'd lift out smoothly. It did NOT have blinkers of any kind.

Aus got blinkers with the 1961 model (like the pics in the post above).

Have a look at this article for the major changes year to year
www.vw-resource.com/years.html
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ItaType3

In Italy in 1958 a new law was introduced for road traffic: the orange light was mandatory (in the back).
So VW produced, for Italy, these lights from 1958 until July 1961.
I don't know the history of Australian law.

Greetings from Italy
Ciao!!!
Stefano De Bastiani


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