How long was it to ship from factory to US?

[harrymarlin]

I can tell from my birth certificate when my bug had its final inspection done, but I don't know when it may have arrived at a port in the US (or even to the dealership). Does anyone know if the general shipping times?

For example, once the VW was completed at the factory, was it sent immediately to a boat which set sail to the states, or did it generally sit at Wolfsburg for some period?

Once at a port, did it sit around a while before being transported to the dealership, or did VW have everything ready to go?

Or was all of this on a case by case basis, and there is no way to really estimate time from factory to dealership?

If my birth certificate gives a date, could I just tack on 2 months and say that it would have been to the dealership by then?

-Harry

[mukluk]

Haven't seen any specific information on the subject, but it'd be a safe bet the car would sit at the factory or the dock for at most a day or two, followed by about a week to cross the Atlantic, another day to be unloaded from the ship and onto a carrier, then add time on the carrier to the dealership. Adding it all up gives us a rough estimate of between a little over a week to about two weeks. A two month guess is likely an overestimate, while a one month guess is quite safe but also likely long depending on what year and where the dealership was we're talking about.

Total VW sales in the US for 1966 and 1967 averaged about 395k for all types of vehicles, so figure a weekly average import of about 7600 vehicles to meet demand. With an average production of just under 18k Beetles per week in this time period (not including other VW types), it's a safe bet the cars didn't sit around for long before shipping out.

http://carsalesbase.com/us-car-sales-data/volkswagen/
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/archives/info/bugchassisdating.php
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1960 Ragtop w/Semaphores "Inga"

[h~moto]

[harrymarlin]

Great analysis - and documentation to potentially back it up. Thanks for the information. I assumed travel would take a while, but it makes sense they wanted to move those cars as fast as they could.

-Harry

[joe h.]

I have a letter from the factory regarding my car from the early 80's. It has some info that isn't commonly found on birth certs.
My car left the factory on Jan 7th 1954, and was delivered Jan 25th to Seattle. You can assume a few day for transport to the docks, and unloading. So about 15 days I would say.
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http://www.cascadekombis.org/vintage-meet