What year is my car?
A summary of numbers and their meanings for 65-69 912s

Re: Ladies and Gentleman 912 Statistics

Posted By: Jaems Thomsen on the 912 BBS
Date: Thursday, 29 January 2004, at 11:12 p.m.

In Response To: Re: 912 Statistics (john thornton)

Ladies and Gentleman

I thought I might beam in and clear this up or confuse you more.

I see we are beating a dead horse again. As far as manufacture dtd vs model year. The only way you will know for sure is to get the Kardex on the questioned 912.

Manufacture date and model year start in late August. When the boys come back from summer holidays and continues to the end of June of the next year. The manufacture dtd may be different for one car, than another that has a high Vin#.

Remember that Karmann is a coach builder not a car manufacturer. That means that the body is made at Karmann Coach werks and the mechanics are done finished at KW-Porsche. The Vin# is assigned as the coach is being built. If you look under the Knee pad, under the dash. You will find the Vin in big stamped numbers across the bottom of the dash. That is when the Vin# is assigned. When they finish the car depends on a lot of different events.

Lets take the 68 912 that I am restoring. The vin# is 12800827 this will not tell you when the car was finished. It could have been finished with a birth date of April. The car may have been pushed off to the side. Because Olf may have had a beer to many at lunch and dropped a box of parts on the body and had to have some body work before they finished it . Or Karmann sent over several bodies to finish and it sat for awhile before they got around ot it.

Most likely we can assume that the Vin# will give some indication when the car was finished. If one 912 owner has a Kardex for a dtd and another has a Kardex dtd and your Vin# fit between them. Then you could probably assume that yours was maufactured somtime between theirs. However I know that my 68 was a early one because it they were still using some 67 parts at the start of the model year. One example is the early suicide door handles.

Also the Kardex date is the finished date not the shipping date. It may have sat for a month before the car was shipped. Barwalt(sp?) has the card that we all would like to have. It evens tells who the first owner was and when he purchased the car.

This is how you read the Vin# "12" tells you that it is a 912 if it was a 911 it would be "11".

The next number "0" means that it was made at the Karmann Coach Werks. " 2" would be KW-Porsche. The last four are the sequential numbering for start of manufacture not necessary the dtd.

So Vin# 12800827 would mean that I have a 912 manufactured in 1968 at the Karmann Coach Werks and was the 827th started that model year.

The engine # are as followed for 68:
1080001-1084998 was a early engine type 616/36 (with new heart)
1085001-1089999 type 616/36 (old heater) .
The later engine number 1280001-1289999 type 616/39 was also the one that was use for the 69 912.

The Transaxel had two set of numbers the
1080001-1089999 type 902/1
and the 1280001-1289999 type 902/2

The 69 912 was similar with the exception of the Targas. I am not sure of which number they used for the 68/69 912 Targa the 911 used 5,6,7,8 depending on the engine and USA shipment.

This info is not from Dr. Johnson, but from the factory. The 356 group has been going through this problem for years. Since a lot of Germans got stung after W.W.II for the records they had kept. They were not keeping it really straight for a while a little subconscious paranoia probably, also everything was put on Kards hence Kardexs and might had be missed placed for minor things when they changed during the model year from suicide door handles to roll over safe handles for a example.

So JohnT the only way you will know for sure the year of manufacture is to write the factory or PCA for the Kardex info for the particular 912 or Porsche. I also picked up two new heads, oil cooler and a case. to start my engine in the 66. I also hope you have a great year in Racing this coming season.

Well it is time to Beam out again catch you on the back side.

Wiedersehen
Jaems