Wolfsburg Factory Reconditioned cars

[rod_vw]

[splitjunkie]

[virtanen]

The lower picture must been taken in 1948 or later. The chassis has already rectangular jack points and engine later fuel line, both introduced in 1948.
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Mika
Split beetle restoration panels
Oval beetle restoration panels
New projects

[Blue Baron]

[Blue Baron]

Here's a photo that shows just how knocked around these cars were.

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We are striving for perfection, to make our cars run forever, if possible.

Heinz Nordhoff

[Blue Baron]

[Busstom]

This is one of the most interesting threads on TheSamba

[Blue Baron]

This photo also appears to be of the remanufacturing line, because there are used parts on the engine, including exhaust
and air cleaner. Even the plug wire tube looks funky.

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We are striving for perfection, to make our cars run forever, if possible.

Heinz Nordhoff

[Blue Baron]

This looks like a storage compound for Sedans circa 1946 rather than staging for the rebuilding line, but is another
great photo of the well-used British occupation fleet, many of which would go through the remanufacturing process.

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We are striving for perfection, to make our cars run forever, if possible.

Heinz Nordhoff

[finster]

something about the right hand guy's clothes make me think he's russian. perhaps they were collecting a batch of cars.
I have seen reference to Hirst saying they had circa 800 cars to overhaul and repair at a time when the french were wanting their vws repaired at wolfsburg.
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"we're here on Earth to fart around" kurt vonnegut

nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect...

[finster]

just wondering if this is a photo of the recon section

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"we're here on Earth to fart around" kurt vonnegut

nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect...

[Martin Southwell]

The work benches/surfaces and racks above look remarkably devoid of tools/parts. Is this a case of clinically clean workshops, or shortages?

[Blue Baron]

I'm thinking it's a regular workshop.

But still an interesting early photo.
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We are striving for perfection, to make our cars run forever, if possible.

Heinz Nordhoff

[RUNKLE]

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Type 1
1950 Standard - 1959 Ragtop - 1961 Ragtop two fold - 1964 Sunroof

Type 3
1968 Squareback

[finster]

that photo now removed was of raffay & co vw dealership in hamburg
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"we're here on Earth to fart around" kurt vonnegut

nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect...

[Blue Baron]

This car would be considered BER (beyond economical repair).

Note how the roof is torn apart in a straight line above the split window. It might have been a very early postwar car with the two-piece roof.
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We are striving for perfection, to make our cars run forever, if possible.

Heinz Nordhoff

[finster]

^ still lots of useable parts to be gleaned from it, provided they could get the stains removed...
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"we're here on Earth to fart around" kurt vonnegut

nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect...

[scottyrocks]

These historical threads are my favorite part of the samba.
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“If you care for a thing long enough, it takes on a life of its own, doesn't it? Mending old things, preserving them, looking after them – on some level there's no rational grounds for it.”
– D. Tartt, 'The Goldfinch'

[splitjunkie]

The pan might very well be OK so plop a new body on and they would have a drivable car.

Even if the pan was toast, they would have have rescued anything usable off of it. Everything was in short supply so anything usable would have been salvaged I suspect.
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Chris

You know, a lot of these scratches will buff right out... Jerry Seinfeld

[Vanagonsgoslow]

Did anyone ever think that the poor welding on the very early cars had been done as deliberate sabotage by the German workers or the result of a shortage of enough welding gas/supplies so that the workers used as little of their precious welding supplies as possible?

The defeated German soldiers had no fondness for the Russian and French occupying armies; possibly the defeated Germans had a little more fondness for the British and American occupying forces. In those early years the Allies were still trying to figure out what to do with a defeated Germany and were "accidentally" starving the civilian population with very meager rations. By that time the Germans certainly had already learned about all the "tricks" used when it came to industrial sabotage, as the slave laborers the Germans extensively used during WW2 had been engaging in it to sabotage the German war efforts.