well that absolutely clarifies the point about the manuf plate.
they don't need one.
the Vin Label in the door is all they require for the USA.
the other one served no purpose.

but that vin label had to have country of origin on it.
the act stated it. its an imported car.
they must have been getting around that requirement for a few years due to the manuf id plate in the front trunk. fed authorities must have accepted that in the interim.

they did sell karmann beetle cabriolets to the rest of the world.
those would have something like a different manuf plate in them.
you won't come across one of those in a BAT ad unless someone was selling a grey market car, which is pretty unlikely.

i might seem to be being pedantic about term germany on these labels.
but i think if you went back into history of international relations at that time it will all be there.
international recognition of west germany would have hung on its acceptable name.
so what got written on those labels as country of origin was legal in nature in relation to international law and trade agreements. ie - what did the USA recognise as the name of what we once called West Germany from the late 70s to the end of the 80s.

for insight into this in the present day look no further than taiwan.

Now that's a funny one, I've had that in my database of 914s with odd VIN or Chassis number for one reason or another. I found this question on Pelican:

"I'm considering a 1975 914 in Burgundy with a cream interior being sold by a car dealer in Syosset NY. It's a 1.7 liter and a beauty with only 17,567 miles on it. The interior is all original. Virtually no wear. I haven't seen it in person but the extensive pictures show no rust. the vin is 4752901632. The car was repainted it's original color at some point, but it was a quality job so it looks factory."

Obviously should not be a 1.7 liter, most likely a 1.8L, but just a coincidence that you posted that one. The "9" is a little funky in the VIN, 1 too many dots?

Here are more pics including VIN and Chassis tag of 1632:

@JeffBowlsby

the 76 914 sort of proves something.
in the USA the vin label in the door is the legal vehicle identification label and technically you should not tamper with it.

i've read all sorts of stuff researching things for this about those vin labels stating athey are anything from emissions compliance to whatever blah.

no. thats the vin plate in america. period.


and of course the 76 is USA only because they start selling 924s in europe that MY.
the 924s get to the USA a year later.

i might go take a look at 924s.
we got them here from the start i think - but not sure.
sometimes RHD was also the year after as well.
they will probably have that new style vin plate from VW.

sometimes its helpful to look further across the VW range,
answers to some of these questions can be found there.

for instance the vin label jeff points to used for a short period of time from davep's collection. out there may well be buses and beetles from the same months with a similar sticker.

you are not necessarily going to find it on porsches - ie 911s. they are not built by VW.

that karmann number though sure is interesting @MCShack .

Look for Recall Campaign HC: https://bowlsby.net/914/Classic/Recalls.htm

fantastic.

right.
so do those labels that are recalled overlap deletion of manuf plate or are they still on the cars as well.

its 75 when those labels without germany on them happen. jan/feb 75 approx.
when do they drop the manuf id plate, is it just for 76 or is sometime in 75?

reason i ask is, there might well be a clue as to when they stop making the cars for europe. the cut off date. if that vin label is all they put on cars after a certain date then they were directing all prdduction only to america?

and if they muddled it in 75 for a couple of months and did not have the old id plates anymore they were in strife. nothing on the cars to say where they were from, country of origin.

Mickeys post above depicts that the car is fully labelled and plated. Unintentionally, as it turns out and it would have been conflictingly had the recall label been installed. Yet the recall was only for the 'official' VIN label (Safety Compliance Label), where this car evidently did not have the recalled label replaced.

Might be better actually. Think of getting the recall letter a few months after purchase and the hassles created with changing the VIN on the cars title and registration.

^ admittedly they did have karmann plates.

but they were legally BS.
had made in western germany on it, a redundant no longer recognized name for a country and no vin number, just an internal production number.

the vin law was pretty clear.
vin number etc and country of origin/manufacture.

they had their arses covered when they had two plates.

right.

so they were still doing both at that stage.

which means the label change and then recall was likely fed/DOT/authority induced?

they had been getting away with not having country of origin on vin labels to that point.
but the feds must have reeled them in on it?

i guess the manuf id plate had the vin chassis number next to country of origin and they let them do it for a while but then someone decided the id plate absolutely did not conform. non contrast. incorrect location. possibly not tamper proof.

and either someone bungled it at the printer and didn't print germany on the labels which were now it as far as the feds were concerned.
which is entirely possible.

or they hesitated. for some reason.

its very interesting. germany only lasts for a few years or maybe only 1 on those vin labels.

i'm pretty sure the plates the golfs get in 75 for 76 MY have West Germany on them.
whatever it was it was going down in that period.

looks like they had to settle for writing germany in for whatever reason for about a years worth of car production maybe. would need to dig up some more beetle cab vins as that pinpoints when germany stops being used in international legal terms.

ok

here are the vin stickers on 912E s
these cars are what porsche replaces 914s with in second half of 76 MY.

i checked a few just in case i was looking at restos with suss reproductions.
(one of these vins doesn't looked punched but the other looks original)
looks like this is what they are. might try to find some more just to be 100%

WEST GERMANY.

by late 1975/new year 1976 the question has been settled?
its west germany under international law, and the recognized name is adopted.

i'll go look for some karmann cabrios around that time too. see what there is.

i appreciate all the tracking of details and huge data base you guys have built up.
tracks all the little details and glitches around authenticity etc in cars.

but i'm sticking with my hunch that not having germany on that batch of Vins is not a clerical error. its a hesitation. GERMANY was supposed to go over to WEST GERMANY and it didn't happen on time and they kind of dilly dallied but have to give in and keep using GERMANY. it only lasts 1 year.

doesn't change the facts of the glitch vin sticker.
just gives a cultural explanation for it rather than keeping the gaze restricted to internal company relations or internal porsche vw business stuff. sometimes its bigger picture stuff explains things?

why i find original objects more interesting that restored objects.
although i admit, 30 years ago i would have been a reckless restorer.Click to view attachment

checked a few more 912Es on BAT.
all of them have WEST GERMANY.
so they flip over from the start.


very quick check on beetles on BAT.
looks like they keep GERMANY on vin label until end of 76MY and flip to WEST GERMANY for 77MY which is mid 76 calendar year if they did the flip at model year change.

76
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77
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this one is pretty cool.
roger daltry's vw cab. 77 model. rhd - english market.
they were still using the stamped metal manufacture id plate for the ROW cars.
old style.
WEST GERMANY.
its a nice car.
great color.
man it was well documented in advert. a ton of photos.

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so basically it was all going down in that time period. 75-77
changeover from status of country and its name.
and all the products are getting sorted.
my belief is they probably hoped to transition to west germany on these labels once it all got oked by internation treaties. diplomatic stuff but the feds like any random bureaucracy got them by the neck in the USA and didn't care. insisted on a name there and then no matter what was in the pipeline just ahead.

The manufacturer tag was not used on most 1976 911 & 912E & 914 but reappeared in 1977

that would be correct for usa market cars davep.
technically the vin label does the job for a USA car.
912E = usa only and i now been educated that a 76 914 is too.

the manufacturer id plate would have stayed on a ROW 911.
they did not have vin labels here.
the closest thing to that is an additional plate that was fixed on here by the importer,
termed a compliance plate. its a metal plate similar to id plate.
affirms car complies with australian standards and regulations.

i can have a look at that one. my mate has a 76 aus delivery 911 he has had since new.
kind of be interesting to see what country name is stamped on the plate of that.

@davep

i phoned up my mate.
i was in error. he has a 75 (constructed in 74). aus delivery.

id plate attached anyway.
same as US cars? identical i believe.
interesting how porsche get around it - don't say germany. turn themselves into a city. stuttgart-zuffenhausen.
never really looked at a 911 plate before!

nothing else on car body apart from the old fashioned plate in the door jamb similar to karmann plate. which says western germany like the old fashioned k plates.
nowhere else is there mention of germany or west germany on the car body itself.
(individual parts might have it, but not a major stamp or plate on the body).

you got to wonder how porsche were getting them past the feds in the USA as well with earlier vin labels with no country on them - and then no manufacturer id plate with matching number and country either.

here is a compliance plate from around the same time.
gets affixed to the car in australia by the distributor/importer.

no mention of germany ( a bit like basil in fawlty towers ?).

of interest to american viewers.
note officiousness of australian plate listing all the various codes and standards.
not sure where they put these on the cars, would have been a struggle to find the space.

my mate rang back with more info.
admittedly we are just australians with whatever we get.
but he has mercs from 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s.
a 600 series.
some stuttgart taxis.
a harmless 4 cylinder 80s middle class station wagon.
and a fried early 90s v8 sedan.

all the plates are remarkably consistent.
made in germany.
mb could not be swerved.

as to VW.
its owned to varying extents by the german govt.
state of saxony.
i forget how it works but it may as well be nationalised.
20-30% shareholding, however you do the numbers and when you do the numbers.
but always 51% of the board.

for want of a better word its subject to being "politically correct".
in line with govt.

as to porsche.
very coy. village cottage industry identity.
the boys from stuttgart.
where is that again?
and aren't the family austrian.

i don't know about bmw.

but that sticker is fascinating that snuck through.

and if porsche had anything to do with it, like VW they would have turned sideways and said, i dunno, whatever. but i doubt they had anything to do with it. the sticker came out of vw inventory for a vw produced car.

porsche were making 9000 cars a year.
reprint a vin sticker if its wrong.
VW were making 9000 cars a day.
thats a big decision placing the sticker order.

i dunno how big the order was for supply of vin stickers.
a month. a week. a quarter.
but i reckon that sticker that the feds ordered the recall on (and they must have) got someone sacked in VW or sent to the cleaning department. there would have been a scapegoat for management indecision/what do we do etc"
because they just would not put a name on it? despite the us feds coming at them.
and its so obvious it is designed to allow the name of the country to be included.

but VW was not a private company or didn't have fully private shareholders like all the other. auto companies
it had the govt. breathing over its shoulders with a hefty 51% distorted interest in it, to stop foreign takeovers. despite the govt. owning only about a quarter to a third of it.

must have been very funny when the feds ordered the recall on the stickers.

and why not recall the 5 years of cars before that while they were at it?

we have three varieties that we currently punch with your date of manufacture for 75 dollars including the sticker: silver 914-6 black early 914 without weights, late 914-4 with weights. Trying to get copies of the rest so we can duplicate and then punch those as well

Could you post pics? Not posted on website. Also, do they have the anti-tamper circle cuts?

@JeffBowlsby @Davep



the glitch (or rare) vin stickers that lasts for only a month or two at the beginning of 1975 is VW wide.

it looks almost as if they rearrange the layout to create enough space for further words (name of country?) for the start of 75 calendar year and then don't include the name until the next batch of vin stickers in about late feb/early march 75.

here are kombi/bus vin labels.
same pattern of types as 914s in same chronology.
slightly different text arrangements as they are not passenger cars.
(two vin dates as some are kamper vans, second vin is interior kamper fit out).


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difficult to easily find van labels from 76 and 77.
but by beginning of calendar year 78 it seems VW replace Germany with West Germany.

some beetle info i had on file shows that in 76 and 77 vin labels on beetles were using Germany.

Reasonable conclusion = VW adopt the name West Germany in 1978.
but only for USA bound cars on USA Vin Labels.
this all applies only to USA market cars.

cars for the ROW / Europe (EU/Common market as it was known) go over to using the name West Germany in 1976 calendar year. these cars retain manufacturer ID plates.

US market VWs lose the ID plates and transition to only having the Vin Label in the door.

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USA cars

VW probably drop the ID plate in USA cars as a rationalisation and economy.
insignnificant on perhaps individual cars but across daily US export production it added up to a definite saving.

as a result of dropping the manuf i.d. plate for USA, vw had to transfer the country of origin/manufacture on to the USA vin label.

this appears to have been a series of changes for the first 6 months of calendar year 75.
914s probably illustrate the same transition on other VW product.

1. re designed sticker with space allocated for name. Jan/Feb 75.
2. addition of name - Germany - March 75 to end of MY 75 / approx july or aug 75.
3. introduction of 76 MY car, drops manuf id plate, has only vin label = to later 75MY cars.

at step 1 VW seem to hesistate. possibly attempting to clarify when the name change of germany will be recognized by the US govt. after a couple of months it is confirmed.
not a problem at that stage of the year as they still had man. i.d. plates on cars.

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ROW/EU cars

The EU is the first to recognize the new modified official name for Germany as West Germany. its adopted throughout those markets and territories for the ID plate in 76.

It is highly likely that the USA did not formally recognize the modified official name of West Germany until some time later. safe to say just before 1978 if VW labels are trustworthy indications.

I think they would be. VW was the only auto maker in germany where the german govt. was a significant stakeholder and had a place on the board (controlling interest).
everything would have been crossed t-s and dotted i-s.

conclusion.

the Vin labels are the province of VW and have nothing to do with porsche.

the Vin labels are tailored to the USA market only and reflect the protocols around wording and names particular to US - German relations.

the ROW of world cars diverge and adopt a different protocol.

--------

of interest.

other car makers in germany seem to plough their own furrow regardless of official govt. protocols etc.

MB are just made in germany from whoa to go.
post war occupation / independence / economic miracle era/ post re-unfication.
they never change their tune.

Porsche adopt West Germany in 1976 on their USA vin labels.
a full two years before VW.
probably less proper. they don't wait around.
but they don't have the german govt. looking over their shoulder on the board.

i don't know about other carmakers.

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i found a few more 75 Vin labels for 75 cars easily and quickly off BAT.
the redesigned stickers without Germany written on them are restricted to the first 8 weeks of 75. the first stickers with germany included appear at the end of week 8.

@JeffBowlsby + @MCShack .

here is a second one of those funny vin labels i came across looking up 75 1.8 evap emission material.

the one posted above is 1632 car for the 75 MY. built 36th week of 1974.
vin label should say 09/74? am i right.

and this one is very slightly earlier. 966th car. built 35th week of 1974.
vin label on this one should say 09/74?

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in originality section of the website.

http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?sho...76497&st=40

found vw cabrio PKN numbers (sometimes called karmann #) from around 37th week of 74 - there was a batch of 914s around same week that used the beetle cabrio PKN# fifth digit instead of the 5 or 6 they used earlier and the 0 and 1 they used later.

maybe there were a few mistakes going on in the karmann factory at that time with PKN numbers and Vin labels. someone had the number stamping machines for chassis plates and vin labels set up incorrectly?

@davep and i were thinking this is around the time that karmann shifts the 914 production line over to be with the beetles just after karmann ghia was discontinued.

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there is a long gap in dates between #633 above getting its PKN# plate and getting its Vin Label. 35th week of 74 = 26-30 august. #1632 is similar. almost like they were stockpiling bodies in august? then pausing production, while rearranging the production lines, then getting back to business in october?