65 Beetle Specifications & Options

[dbuche]

Hi again,

I am researching the specs for a bug built in Feb. of 1965. I would like to build a spec document of my own that includes all the changes and design options for this car so I can plan a stock restoration.

I have Richardson's guide, which is good on changes but not so good on providing comprehensive specs per model year that include the options for paint, trim, interior color, etc. I would also like to find a list of after market options popular at the time.


I'm guessing I am not the first to ask for this kind of info, but I've pecked away at this keyboard for days now and just can't find a source.

Any help at all will be greatly appreciated,

Dan

[bruce jones]

For factory info (paint/interior combinations, etc.), try to find a copy of J. T. Garwood's Car of the Century, Volume 2. For aftermarket accessories, look for a 1965-70 copy of the J. C. Whitney catalog.
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Driving in the slow lane since 1969.

[dbuche]

Thanks Bruce,

Surprisingly enough, I ordered that book from my library just the other day.

I found several sites that list paint and interior colors, but they leave me wondering. The Wolfsburg site is very clear about paint and interior color options, but other sites only identify colors with year ranges.

Does that mean the Wolfsburg site identifies only the standards for each year but customers could order colors from previous years?

So many questions, so little time.

[glutamodo]

A library has that book available? Interesting, as it was a home-printed book and was never produced in very high numbers. My copies have serial numbers of 442 (vol 1) and 310 (vol 2)

You could not custom order special colors for Sedans, you had to take what VW offered for that production year. Convertibles had some extra colors available. There were some colors that were not sold in the USA in certain years, but not in 1965.

[bruce jones]

When I worked for a VW dealer in 1969-1970, I remember swapping out complete interiors (seats, door panels) from one car to another, when a customer wanted say a red interior with a red car. I do not recall customers having the option to special-order paint colors. Of course, I was just a high school kid working in "dealer prep".
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Driving in the slow lane since 1969.

[bruce jones]

[dbuche]

Thanks for the great links. That extra heater is interesting.

I may have been wrong about the book. I ordered several in Richardson's bibliography. Garwoods's Vol.2 is there, but so is Etzold's Vol. 2, so I'm not sure.

From the other posts, it sounds like VW customers had standard factory choices and other dealer choices when it came to paint and interior colors. If so, were the dealers ordering a car without a top coat or interior so they could apply them themselves?

I am also curious about the criteria used to determine matching engine numbers. Might VW have installed an engine were produced in September or October 1964 in a car built in February 1965?

[glutamodo]

Not very likely to have an engine that far out of time in there.

I will say though, that 1965 model year was kind of weird regarding the records for chassis and engine numbers. The charts VW published in the Production Survey in Progressive Refinements showed the numbers for October to Feb being all jumbled up. Recently I tried to go and correlate those numbers against the actual 1965 entries within the various chapters in Progressive Refinements and the Notes in the Workshop Manual. Without finding much in the way of correlation. For instance, one big change was the switch to short stud heads, this is listed in many places as:

However, no where else does Nov 24 seem to line up with engine number 9205700!

I went and sat down and copied the VIN chart off the Samba, and then added almost every entry I could find in those two books. I was talking to Everett about this recently - it's probably too much to try to stick in the actual VIN charts, so what I'll do here is take a screen-shot of it and put it in the Gallery. It is a jumbled mess. I suppose some if it could be that they set engine number series aside for different countries... But there's a lot of info that may be typos or bad record keeping...? (It's clear that the chassis number for end-of-January should be 115 400 000 instead of 115 500 000. Other than that, it's hard to tell what was going on.)

[dbuche]

That is great data, thanks. It reveals that my car was built between March 12 and March 22, 1965, and lets me search for the change details and likely dealer added options.

Your comments about the data being jumbled and the possibility of typos is disappointing from a research perspective. I was relying on the famous German passion for precision extending to record keeping. This is obviously another time when primary records add enough fact to prompt more questions.

I will assume the March dates are accurate for the car and that other data is required to determine VW SOP for engines. The engine number range for the March dates is 9285001 to 9371458. If simple arithmetic is used, VW built 86,457 engines between March 5 and the final March date. The same math applied to chassis numbers of 115594027 & 115678203 = 84,176 cars, which implies a surplus of 2281 engines.

The question then becomes, why did VW want that much surplus, and how did they manage it?

[glutamodo]

The problem is, there are just too many discrepancies scattered among the chart entries to make that kind of prediction, not during that stretch of 1965 that is. The chassis numbers of March 5 12 and 22 are not in order and I suspect the 12th must be wrong.

There was NOT a need for very many "extra" engines at this point in time. Only the Bus models were using any additional 1200 engines, and by 1965 not very many of them were 1200 models.

Anyway, I posted that up mostly to show how weird the record-keeping was at that time, for whatever unknown reason.

You always could buy a Birth Certificate from VW, and give them your engine number and see if it matches their records... but they'll only tell you if it does or does not match, they no longer just give out the factory engine number if you don't know it.

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=398

-Andy

[creideahm]

Andy and all,

Just found this resource you put together and it's awesome. Does your chart go past what you posted? I have an April born bug just after your chart.

Question, I was told late 64 produced engines were put into 65 bugs because technically the cars were put together in 64 and were sold as 65s. The person referenced JT Garwoods book but I can't verify it. I was under the impression if you had a chassis showing produced in let's say April your engine would show as produced in the run of engines in April as well. I'm confused, which is correct?
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Stay calm and Bug-on

[glutamodo]

Considering how many vehicles were spinning off the assembly every hour of the day, there was no ROOM to keep a bunch of "spare leftovers"... except if it was to do with an item pulled out of the line by quality control for correction. I don't think the engine number was "decided" upon not long before it was installed into the vehicle. As to what blocks of numbers were chosen, those did get shuffled around, which I think is what we're seeing here. I wasn't really even meaning to be specificall talking about model years, it's pretty well known that automobile manufacturing model years and calendar years are two different things.

No I didn't go any further than I did on that chart, I did that one totally to make the point I made above, there was something odd about the number assignments made around that time. You can find the book Progressive Refinements on theSamba and do the same kind of research though. http://www.thesamba.com/vw/archives/manuals/progressive_refinements/index.php
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Andy T.


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[creideahm]

Ok,

So for a 'purest' what would be the correct way, whatever that means to build a car? Keep chassis and engine runs in the same lot? Is that what most recognize? I've requested a birth certificate about 6 months ago and included my engine but have yet to get a response. And I'd be curious for anyone who has did your engine and chassis number correspond?


Andy, thx for the added link
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Stay calm and Bug-on

[carcrazed]

[tasb]

I made a particular note of the factory use of Champion spark plugs. The factory didn't just use Bosch they used Beru too.
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