There’s a strange thing about owning an old VW that is unlike owning any other
car I’ve had in my past. Normally, all I want to know about a car’s past is
how many previous owners it’s had, whether it’s been involved in a bad accident
and how many miles there are on the clock. With Ethel, the number of miles
(or kilometres as it was in Aus) on the clock was almost irrelevant because
I knew that the engine was not the original one, and who knows how
many times other parts had been swapped out? However, I do find myself wanting
to know as much as possible about the van’s past.

One way of finding out the history, or at least part of the vehicle’s history,
is to request a ‘birth certificate’
from the VW Auto Museum in Germany. It may not tell you everything you
need, and it all depends on whether the microfiche for your vehicle is still
intact (not all of them are), but if you’re lucky you’ll find the following
details:

• Customer Name
• Vehicle Ident. Nr.
• Model
• Engine Number
• Color
• Extras/Options
• Date it was built
• Date it left the factory
• Country of Destination

This is printed on a nice certificate, a great little keepsake to put with
all your other vehicle documents. What I discovered about Ethel is that she
left the factory in February 1975 and was destined for Australia. So, the van
has never experienced travels through Europe (apart from being transported
to the docks) - something we’ll have to put right at some point in the future!
The other strange thing I learned is that the van was not originally Martini
Olive (the yellow colour she’s sporting to this day) but actually left the
factory in light grey, paint code L345. So, was that a primer colour of some
kind? There’s no indication in the van that it was any colour other than mustardy
yellow, so I’m going on the assumption now that the paint job was done by the
company that did the camper conversion, Sopru of Adelaide.

Slowly but durely, Ethel’s past is being revealed.