1966 Volkswagen Beetle 1300

A 1966 Volkswagen Beetle 1300, blue over off-white, first registered in Finland on 2 August 1966 and showing 48,629 kilometres — 30,217 miles. The factory plate in the luggage compartment is legible in full: VOLKSWAGENWERK AG, MADE IN GERMANY, Typ 11, Fahrgest.-Nr. (chassis number) 116 726 105, and that number matches every document in the file. What sets the car apart is the paperwork. A Finnish museum vehicle certificate, number 12/244, transcribes it completely — engine number F0681411, colour sininen (blue), 1,285 cm³ at 40 hv/DIN, bore 77 mm and stroke 69 mm, four speeds and reverse, torsion bars front and rear, hydraulic drums, six-volt electrics, 5.60-15 tyres on steel disc wheels — and carries the examiner's own description on the reverse: Erittäin hyvä alkuperäiskuntoinen auto, ajettu vain 45225 km, a very good car in original condition, driven only 45,225 km. It was examined at Kuopio in May 2005 and entered in the Finnish register as a museum vehicle that July. The same document records where the car was kept from new — Riihimäki from August 1966 to March 1980, then Kuopio through to the present, the car never leaving eastern Finland. Behind it sits a registration file running from 1966, insurance certificates from 1984, a roadworthiness inspection from 1995 and six parts and service receipts from 2002 to 2004, together with the VW-Service Europa booklet, the Volkswagen 1300 handbook and a Finnish parking disc. Just 3,404 kilometres have been covered since that certificate was drawn up twenty-one years ago. Disclosed: no continuous workshop record accompanies the vehicle and no invoice records work before 1995; the engine number is recorded on the certificate but the stamping is not photographed in the set held, so no representation is made either way as to the engine; and the Volkswagen plate gives the permissible gross weight as 1160 kg against the Finnish certificate's 1220 kg, both printed as recorded.