Searching for my 1st Thing

[oldthingguy]

I am looking for my 1st Thing I got in 1976, would love to get it back as my Dad and I spent a lot of time working on it together. Vin # is 1833014731. Thank you for any help. I tried DMV but was told they no longer will send a letter to a registered owner with your info.
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73 914 2.0 - sold
63 single cab
73, 73 and 74 Thing - gone
64 notch - gone
60 23 window - gone
57 oval - gone
plus a few others I should have kept

[77kafer]

I too am looking for my THING which I sold many years ago. VIN # is 1832840012.
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Supposed to be 77käfer, but there are no umlauts on an american keyboard

Overheard on 27 June 07, one lady to another when they saw my Harli in a parking lot at West Point, "maybe he found it on the clearance aisle at the Volkswagen dealer"

[Wildthings]

The last thing I would want is for my first thing to show back up in my life for some reason.. High miles, dinged up pretty good, with lots of rust. Good memories though as it was my only car for most of the dozen years I owned it. Best wishes to the guy who bought it to restore it.

Very happy that my present Thing is rust free, mostly straight, and mechanically pretty decent, and I can drive it daily instead of working on it for years on end.

[77kafer]

In my case, (and probably oldthingguy's case) my Thing was finished, rust free and "Thing Class" 1st place winner many times.
I had restored it when I was stationed in Germany in the 80's. When I sold it in 1994, I figured that I would move on to something else, but was never able to wrap myself around a vehicle as I did with that Thing.
I would just like to know if it still alive and well.
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Supposed to be 77käfer, but there are no umlauts on an american keyboard

Overheard on 27 June 07, one lady to another when they saw my Harli in a parking lot at West Point, "maybe he found it on the clearance aisle at the Volkswagen dealer"

[Shoyrtt]

Oldthingguy: I looked in the Thing Registry and it is not listed. http://vwthingregistry.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Registry-Public-List-June-18-CORRECTED.pdf

1833014733 is the closest numerically listed in the Registry, a yellow car in Southern California.

77kafer: sorry nothing close for you.

[77kafer]

Thanks Shoyrtt, I have also been checking the Thing Registry. The folks at the registry have a description of how it looked when I had it and also a photo of it in case it shows up.
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Supposed to be 77käfer, but there are no umlauts on an american keyboard

Overheard on 27 June 07, one lady to another when they saw my Harli in a parking lot at West Point, "maybe he found it on the clearance aisle at the Volkswagen dealer"

[74 Thing]

You need to know someone at the police or an insurance company to run the license plate for you and get the contact info.

[77kafer]

74thing, if you don't know the license plate, you can't have someone "run" the plate # for you to get the info.
In all actuality, you can't give the VIN # to someone and expect results. The vin for an early VW does not have enough numbers in it, with the current VIN # you could go to Carfax and get some info from the fox and have a starting point such as when and where it was last inspected or registered, the old vins are not in the system. Granted a currently registered older VW VIN will be in a state DMV system, but if you are in 1 state, there are 49 others that it will not automatically pop up in. I know this because my son just retired a year ago after 23.5 years with NYPD.
_________________
Supposed to be 77käfer, but there are no umlauts on an american keyboard

Overheard on 27 June 07, one lady to another when they saw my Harli in a parking lot at West Point, "maybe he found it on the clearance aisle at the Volkswagen dealer"