customer wants to know the month of his build, 4732920724 Options

[wonkipop]

I thought the 29 is the Karmann Factory designation.

My Vin is 4732921258 and was manufactured May 19, 1973 per COA.

Not sure how many cars were produced per day.

not in the case of the vin number.

the 2 is a number assigned to all VW model lines beginning model year 1970.
ie mid calendar year 1969.

the beetle was about to click over 2 million cars produced since VW had introduced a new vin numbering sequence that had begun in either 1966 or 1968. can't recall off the top of my head which year it was right now. but where there was a 2 in the Vin like the 914 has and all other VWs beginning MY 1970 the beetle and other VWs prior to that MY had either no number there or a 1 if more than a million had been produced since 1966 (or 8 whichever that year was).

because they never got to a million 914s the number just stayed as a 2 on 914s.
it also stayed as a 2 for 411s/412s. never got to a million.
don't know about type 3s whether they managed to click over from a 2 to a 3 between 1970 and 1973 when they ceased production. could have. never have looked them up.
was also possible that buses clicked over from the 2 to a 3 or even more during the period the 914 was produced.
the beetle certainly did. it started with a 2 in 1970 got to a 3 within about a year and kept going to a 4 and 5.

as to the 9. i used to think that was signifying karmann factory just like it does on the VW production # (or aka karmann plate number) but its not.
if it was then the karmann ghias and beetle convertibles that came out of karmann factory would have had a 9 in the same place. they don't, most ghias i have noted vin numbers for have a 5 where the the 914 has the 9. and its a fixed 5 far as i can tell.
but its not like i am any kind of ghia expert, just something i noticed doing L jet research.

here is what they did.
on VW models that VW expected to get to 1 million cars in one production year the last 6 numbers were available for a run up to 999,999.
the 411s and 412s had that convention. there was a 0 there where the 914 had 9.
same with the beetles. there was a 0. VW expected these cars to hit 999,999.
when they did the 2 before that 0 would click to 3. beetles achieved those sorts of numbers.

i believe what VW did was assign a 9 to 914 vin numbers as a constant fixed number with 5 numbers available for the expected run of cars in any single year. ie 99,999 max.
they never got close.

same goes for karmann ghia. the 5 is a fixed number leaving the next 5 as the count for any one model year of production.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/beerchug.gif)

[wonkipop]

here is something i have on file showing those VW production plate numbers compared to vins for k g and 914.

something i had on file.
direct comparison of kg produced in 74 same time as my 914.
showing my 914 vin and production plate to compare.

i should correct a little what i said above re karmann ghias always using 5.
they are a bit more random than that.
just had a quick look at some on BAT.
its a little harder to tell what is going on.
the one i am showing here has a 5 where 914 has 9.
some later k g have a 7 there.
but i guess what it shows is that the 2 and then the 9 have nothing to do with the karmann factory when it comes to the vin sequence numbers.

1974 karmann ghia. 1/74.
(there is something funny going on with production plate because it is stamped 06 which should make its vin a 2/74. who knows. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/confused24.gif) don't really study k g s on file to the same degree as the L jet stuff i have collected). but anyway this is the point in time they are using a 5 there where the 914 has a 9. and after the 5 is the cumulative production number of the chassis for 74 MY.

i'd have to be doing kg research to get right to the bottom of it.
and its not really something i have time for.
just something i stumbled around the edges of figuring the ins and outs of the 74 1.8s.

.



74 914. 1/74.
and all 914s just use the 9. always did.
but it does not mean karmann factory in the case of Vin.




the 9 certainly means karmann factory in the case of the production plate.
its the same on both cars. a 9.
its also there on the VW cabriolets on the production plate.
all cabs came from karmann.
and its probably there on sciroccos as they also had a production plate and came from karmann factory.

[SirAndy]

Made a quick and simple chassis number decoder.
Porsche 914 chassis number decoder

If anyone has any issues with it let me know and I can modify it. Appears to work correctly for my 1974 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

@914Wes Tried with my 1973 and didn't work. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)

@914Wes
Line 11 is incorrect.

The 95 will roll over to a 96 if there were more than 99 cars made that day.

So your daily_sequence should be computed as:

CODE

roll_over = int(chassis_number[3:5])
daily_sequence = int(chassis_number[5:7]) + ((roll_over - 95) * 100)

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/type.gif)

@914Wes
Few more issues with the online decoder above

- The chassis for a certain model year were built the previous year
- The week number calculation assumes weeks always start on January 1st but they actually start on the first Monday of the year.


So in the example of a '73 car with chassis number 2449628 the answer should be:
Thursday, June 15th 1972

instead of
Thursday, June 14th 1973


(IMG:style_emoticons/default/type.gif)

[914Wes]

Made a quick and simple chassis number decoder.
Porsche 914 chassis number decoder

If anyone has any issues with it let me know and I can modify it. Appears to work correctly for my 1974 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

@914Wes Tried with my 1973 and didn't work. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)

@914Wes
Line 11 is incorrect.

The 95 will roll over to a 96 if there were more than 99 cars made that day.

So your daily_sequence should be computed as:

CODE

roll_over = int(chassis_number[3:5])
daily_sequence = int(chassis_number[5:7]) + ((roll_over - 95) * 100)

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/type.gif)

@914Wes
Few more issues with the online decoder above

- The chassis for a certain model year were built the previous year
- The week number calculation assumes weeks always start on January 1st but they actually start on the first Monday of the year.


So in the example of a '73 car with chassis number 2449628 the answer should be:
Thursday, June 15th 1972

instead of
Thursday, June 14th 1973


(IMG:style_emoticons/default/type.gif)

I'll work on correcting the script once I get back from Okteenerfest. Thanks for the input.

[davep]

Regarding the Karmann body #'s, I was one of the first to decode the sequence using about 50 data sets. This was back in the late 1970's after purchasing my first 914 in 1975. The first thing that popped out was the 9 in the middle was constant, and the range of values for digit 3 was just 1 to 5. Then it became apparent that digits 1 & 2 did not exceed 52. So the week and day portion was solved. The last 3 digits are complicated, but in general are the daily sequence #. The base value is 500 from the inception of production to at least week 35 in calendar year 1974 and it appears that week 36 has a base of zero (000). From week 36 through week 42 the daily sequence number bounces up to about 400; but I have an outlier of 880. This is apparently due to the inclusion of VW models in the range. From week 43 the range drops to about 85 per day. I do not have enough data to know if the daily range is all 914 production or not.

Wes, I'd like to assist with your decoder since I have also found a few problems with it. I probably have the largest data set of Karmann body #'s to work with.

Also thanks for the offer of the spoiler brackets and bolts, my Bumblebees need a little dressing up in that department. I'll send a PM with info.
Dave