If you go to the Volkswagen AutoMuseum and fill-in their Certificate Generator (oh, and remit 35 Euros), they will research your little hobby car, and send you a birth certificate that tells when your car was made, where is was shipped, and what options were included.
Is it really necessary (and worth the money)? Maybe not. Depends on how much you want to know about your car, its history, and its original color-scheme/engine/configuration/etc. Since I want to try and keep it original, I’m curious to see if there’s something about Beevis that I don’t already know.
Off to Alabama. Just a two-hour drive to Florence, Alabama to retrieve Beevis the Bug. Can’t carry two, so I’ll get the sedan and come back for the convertible. After arriving on the scene, and making contact with Wade, the previous owner (a nice guy), I took a little closer look at the convertible: Looks rough.
Speedo for the 'vert.
May not be much to salvage here. There’s an engine and transaxle — that may be enough to make it worthwhile to come back and get it. It’s a shame, really. Looks like the car has been sitting in a junk yard, and slowly parted-out. Mother nature took her share, too. The ebay auction listing identified the bug as a ’65, but I checked the VIN number on TheSamba.com’s Technical Information page and saw that it was really a 1966. No big deal, either way. But after looking at the engine number, I can see the Volkswagen ‘recycle’ symbol, and the engine number ends with an ‘X’. I think that means the engine is part of the Volkswagen Exchange program. Probably had an engine swap fairly early in life. Not the original engine — too bad. Engine number.
1300cc EngineIt didn't start out so badly...
So I load up Beevis (’cause the other one certainly looks like Butthead) on the trailer, and start to head back to Tupelo. Good sign to see him crank up and drive right up on the trailer.
Beevis looks like he has a tree growing out his head.
Across the dam we go….(I think it was the Wilson Dam?). Not sure. Also not sure if I supposed to pull a trailer on the dam or not.
Wilson Dam. Not a lot of room.Are you following me?
While heading to Mississippi, I came through some town close to Corinth. I don’t remember the name, but there were signs up all through town that said “Welcome Home, Russell”. (my name) Maybe some soldier serving in Iraq? A contestant on Deal or No Deal? Don’t know, but it was one of those strange coincidences like opening up a fortune cookie and thinking that the fortune was a little *too* accurate or promising. Welcome Home, Russell.
232.4 Miles. 17.86 gallons @ 2.76 per gallon = Add $49.28 to the Bug spreadsheet.
I’m going to pick up a couple of cars from Alabama, and bring them back to Mississippi. What do I need in order to get title’s on these vehicles? A trip to the Lee County (MS) tag office gets me the skinny:
1) In Alabama, cars sold prior to 1974 don’t have Documents of Title. So there’s nothing to really transfer from Alabama to Mississippi. But there’s no reason to get a Title Document in Alabama because it’s fairly easy to get one in Mississippi:
2) In order to get a Document of Title in Mississippi, the state requires either TWO Bills of Sale and ONE Tag Registration, or ONE Bill of Sale and TWO Tag Registrations. I have one Bill of Sale from the previous owner in Alabama, and when I get a tag in Mississippi, that will count as one Tag Registration. So then I need only wait ’til next year and get another Tag Registration, THEN I can apply for a Document of Title.
I suppose I could have had a friend be the buyer of the Beetle from Alabama, then have him sign a Bill of Sale to me. That would get me TWO Bills of Sale and the when I got the Tag, I could apply for a Document of Title immediately. I don’t know if there’s anything wrong with that, but it doesn’t really matter.
An interesting thing about all this — a Document of Title (the piece of paper that people associate with car ownership) is just a piece of paper that makes it easy to explain who owns the vehicle. It’s not the actual “ownership” of the vehicle. If you own something (like a car), you have ‘title’ to it. The paper is not the ownership, it’s merely documentation of ownership.
The 1963 Volkswagen 1200 (Beetle) was around $1595.00 According to an online inflation calculator, that equates to about $11,330 in 2010 dollars. That doesn’t sound inexpensive. But then again, according to the National Automobile Dealers Association, the average cost of a new car in 2010 is more than $28,000. So it does sound good by comparison. And when you put the old Beetle alongside the list of more fuel-efficient vehicles (on fueleconomy.gov), the Beetle is still near the top with 31.5 mpg.
